"Ojalá" has been Spanish for centuries, it's an ordinary word. Most of the Iberian Peninsula once was under Arab rule, parts of it for 700+ years, so of course

"Ojalá" has been Spanish for centuries, it's an ordinary word. Most of the Iberian Peninsula once was under Arab rule, parts of it for 700+ years, so of course our ancestors borrowed some vocabulary from them. More specifically, checking the etymology, "ojalá" seems related to the (old?) Arab idiom "wa sha Allah" (transliterations differ), roughly meaning "and God willing", which matches an equivalent Spanish idiom. I can't see how this has ever been insulting at any point in history. Honestly, I think your colleague is virtue signalling hard.