al-Shūrā 42:39 commentary

42/39

وَٱلَّذِينَ إِذَآ أَصَابَهُمُ ٱلْبَغْىُ هُمْ يَنتَصِرُونَ

Wa'lladhīna idhā aṣābahumu'l-baghyu hum yantaṣirūn

"And those who, when a wrong strikes them, help one another and take their right."

ٱلْبَغْى — with the definite article

The root was treated at the fourteenth verse and grounded on al-Ḥujurāt 49/9: wanting in its boundary-crossing state.

In this use the word has taken the definite article: al-baghy. Indefinite, it would have been "a wrong"; being definite, it is "that known overstepping" — that is, the thing the sūra has already named.

And note: the verb is aṣāba — the same root as aṣābakum in the thirtieth verse (ص-و-ب).

Verse	What strikes	Whom
30	muṣība	Those addressed — and its cause their own earning
39	al-baghy	The believers — and its cause another's act

This distinction is worth recording and touches the question treated at the thirtieth verse: the sūra itself shows that not everything that strikes comes from a person's own earning. In the thirty-ninth verse what strikes is plainly another's overstepping.

I record this as an observation about the text, and it supports the limitation set out at the thirtieth verse.

يَنتَصِرُون — root ن-ص-ر, Form VIII

Naṣr — to help. And Form VIII (intiṣār) conveys two things:

Meaning	How
To help oneself	To bring the help about upon oneself — that is, to take one's right
To help one another	Reciprocity

And there are two readings of the word's sense here:

Reading	What it says
1	They take their right — they do not submit to the wrong
2	They help one another — they stand by the one who is wronged

Both readings are transmitted in the classical sources and they do not exclude one another. The pattern allows both.

And the word will occur twice more in the sūra:

Verse	Word	Who
39	hum yantaṣirūn	The believers — as an attribute
41	wa la-mani'ntaṣara* baʿda ẓulmih*	The one wronged — as a ruling
(46)	awliyāʾa yanṣurūnahum	Being without a helper — in the negative

This is a verifiable fact, and the forty-first verse will state the ruling of the thirty-ninth outright.

The placing of this attribute in the list

And this must be recorded, because it is decisive for the list as a whole:

In the thirty-seventh verse it was said "when they are angry they forgive". Two verses later it says "when a wrong strikes them they take their right".

These two attributes are in the same list and do not cancel one another. How this is so will be explained in the fortieth verse — and this is the finest balance in the sūra.