al-Shūrā 42:41 commentary

42/41

وَلَمَنِ ٱنتَصَرَ بَعْدَ ظُلْمِهِۦ فَأُو۟لَٰٓئِكَ مَا عَلَيْهِم مِّن سَبِيلٍ

Wa la-mani'ntaṣara baʿda ẓulmihi fa-ulāʾika mā ʿalayhim min sabīl

"As for those who take their right after being wronged — there is no way against them."

بَعْدَ ظُلْمِهِ — the referent of the pronoun

There are two readings of the pronoun in the construction ẓulmihi, and both are transmitted:

Reading	Construction	Meaning
1	An objective genitive — "the wrong done to him"	"After having been wronged"
2	A subjective genitive — "the wrongdoer's wrong"	"After the wrongdoer's wrong"

Both readings arrive at the same result: the one who takes his right has first suffered a wrong. I do not impose a preference.

مَا عَلَيْهِم مِّن سَبِيلٍ — not being blamed

Sabīl — a way. And in Arabic the idiom "ʿalayhi sabīl" means "a way against him, a case, a liability". The sentence, then: there is no proceeding, no blame, no charge against them.

And the la- must be recorded: wa la-mani'ntaṣara — the lām of emphasis. The sentence has been reinforced.

I record this as my own reading: immediately after the fortieth verse has praised pardon, the forty-first defends the one who does not pardon. This sequence matters: had pardon been praised and left there, the one who takes his right would have been indirectly blamed. The verse closes that door.

سَبِيل — the four occurrences in the sūra

The word occurs four times in the sūra, twice in a positive and twice in a negative direction:

Verse	Sentence	About whom
41	mā ʿalayhim min sabīl	The one who takes his right — no way against him
42	innama's-sabīlu ʿala'lladhīna yaẓlimūn	The wrongdoer — there is a way against him
44	hal ilā maraddin min sabīl	The one who sees the punishment — is there a way back
46	fa-mā lahu min sabīl	The one who strays — no way

The forty-first and forty-second verses set up a direct opposition: the same word, in two consecutive verses, on two opposite sides. This is a fact that can be verified from the text.