al-Shūrā 42:46 commentary

42/46

وَمَا كَانَ لَهُم مِّنْ أَوْلِيَآءَ يَنصُرُونَهُم مِّن دُونِ ٱللَّهِ ۗ وَمَن يُضْلِلِ ٱللَّهُ فَمَا لَهُۥ مِن سَبِيلٍ

Wa mā kāna lahum min awliyāʾa yanṣurūnahum min dūni'llāh; wa man yuḍlili'llāhu fa-mā lahu min sabīl

"Nor were there for them any protectors to help them apart from God. And whomever God leads astray has no way."

The meeting of two roots

The verse gathers the sūra's two key roots into one sentence: و-ل-ي and ن-ص-ر.

And this pair had occurred twice before in the sūra, as nouns (8 and 31: min waliyyin wa lā naṣīr). Here one comes as a noun and the other as a verb: awliyāʾa yanṣurūnahum.

Verse	Form
8, 31	Waliyy + naṣīr — two nouns
46	Awliyāʾ + yanṣurūna — noun + verb

At the third occurrence, that is, protectorship is described by a verb: a protector is one who helps. This accords with the proof given for walī in the ninth verse (giving life to the dead).

مِن سَبِيلٍ — the word's last occurrence

In the forty-first verse it was said mā ʿalayhim min sabīl (there is no way against them); here it says fa-mā lahu min sabīl (there is no way for him).

Verse	Construction	Preposition	Meaning
41	mā ʿalayhim* min sabīl*	ʿalā — against	No blame
46	fa-mā lahu* min sabīl*	li — for	No way out

The same construction, two opposite senses with a single letter's difference. This is a verifiable fact of language and an instance of the basic distinction in Arabic between ʿalā and li (against / for).