A pronoun appearing before its antecedent in the spoken sequence is not automatically defective. What matters is whether the construction has a recognized syntactic basis. In some accepted structures, the antecedent is earlier in grammatical rank even though it occurs later in wording.
Compare:
«ضرب غلامَه زيدٌ» — Zayd struck his servant: the agent Zayd has priority in grammatical rank.
«جزى بنوه أبا الغيلان» — the pronoun in the subject refers to the object, whose grammatical rank is later.
The correct analysis therefore weighs both surface order and grammatical rank.