al-Naḥl 16:125

Udʿu ilā sabīli rabbika bi'l-ḥikmati wa'l-mawʿiẓati'l-ḥasanati wa jādilhum bi'llatī hiya aḥsan, inna rabbaka huwa aʿlamu bi-man ḍalla ʿan sabīlihī wa huwa aʿlamu bi'l-muhtadīn

"Call to the way of your Lord with wisdom and with fair admonition; and dispute with them in the way that is best. Your Lord knows best who has strayed from His way, and He knows best those who are guided."

The verse enumerates three instruments for the calling, and each is given in a different form:

Three things must be recorded, and all three can be verified from the text:

One — ḥikma is given no adjective. The other two have one. The lexicographers put this down to aptness being already present in wisdom itself — the root of ḥikma is ح-ك-م: to put a thing in its proper place, to make it fast; ḥakama — to bridle an animal and so control it. The word means "what is in its place"; no adjective is needed.

Two — the adjectives rise: ḥasana → aḥsan. The second is the elative: better, best.

Three — and the third item is given as a separate clause, with an imperative verb. The first two are joined with a bāʾ, while the third is a command of its own: jādilhum.

I record this as my own reading, and my ground is these three differences of structure: the first two are the form of the calling; the third is a separate work that comes into play if the other side resists. Indeed the first two carry no pronoun for the addressee, while the third does: jādilhum.

And the rising of the adjectives fits this: as the work grows harder, the measure rises. What is asked in disputation is more than what is asked in admonition.

This construction was treated at three places in this commentary, and a table of three links was drawn up. At al-Qaṣaṣ, 28/54, the table stood thus, and I rely on it:

This is the fourth link, and I complete the table:

And the difference of the fourth link must be recorded, because it is the contrary form of al-ʿAnkabūt's:

I record this as my own reading, and my ground is the grammatical form of the two clauses: al-ʿAnkabūt forbids disputation and opens it again by an exception; al-Naḥl commands it outright.

The outcome is the same — a method is fixed — but the route differs. In al-ʿAnkabūt the default position is "disputing", in al-Naḥl the default position is "dispute in the best way".

And what was recorded in the al-ʿAnkabūt section holds here too, and I repeat it: the command is framed not as a prohibition but as a condition of manner. Disputation is not forbidden; its method is fixed.

And it was tabulated that the whole backbone of Ghāfir (al-Muʾmin) is jidāl, and that what is condemned there is disputation without ground (bi-ghayri sulṭānin atāhum). At al-Naḥl 16/4 man's contentiousness was identified as an attribute; at 16/125 that attribute is given a form. This is a ring verifiable within the sūra, and it was treated above at 16/4 and 16/111.

And having given the command, the verse sets a limit.

I record this as an observation about the word order: having enumerated three instruments, the sentence says in whose hand the outcome lies. The method belongs to the one addressed; the outcome does not.

This limit was treated at many places in this commentary: Fāṭir 35/8 and 35/19-23, al-Zumar 39/41, al-Rūm 30/52-53, al-Aḥqāf 46/35. And it had already occurred in the thirty-fifth and eighty-second verses of this sūra as balāgh. I do not repeat it here.