Al-Muntaqim

The root. Al-Muntaqim comes from n-q-m, a root centered on retribution — naqama is to take vengeance for a wrong, and the same root produces intiqām, the noun for the act itself. Muntaqim is the active participle, "the one who takes retribution," a grammatical form that names an agent by what they do rather than by a settled trait, closer in shape to "the avenger" than to a quiet, permanent attribute like "the Merciful."

What it means here. Al-Muntaqim is read as the one who eventually sets right what tyranny has left unanswered — not a name of anger for its own sake, but of certainty: that oppression is not the last word, and that a reckoning for it is not optional. Classical scholars are careful to bound the name: it is read only alongside Al-'Afuww and Al-Ghafur, pardon and forgiveness, and only in the sense of just requital rather than of malice, since Allah's retribution is not driven by injury to Himself the way a human avenger's is.

Where it is met. The exact word Al-Muntaqim does not appear as a name of Allah in the Quran. What does appear is dhū intiqām, "Possessor of Retribution," describing Allah three times — Surah Aal-E-Imran 3:4, Al-Ma'idah 5:95, and Ibrahim 14:47 — always paired there with 'azīz, "Exalted in Might." The plural verb form also appears, Allah saying of the criminals in Surah As-Sajdah 32:22 and elsewhere, "indeed We, from them, are taking retribution" — the action named directly even where this exact noun-form title is not used of Him.