The Pen (Al-Qalam)
In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Most Merciful
۞ Noon. By the Pen and that (the angels) write, 1 By your Lord's Grace, you are not afflicted with madness, 2 And lo! thine verily will be a reward unfailing. 3 For you are verily born of sublime nature. 4 Soon you will see, as will they, 5 Which of you is afflicted with madness. 6 Verily it is thy Lord that knoweth best, which (among men) hath strayed from His Path: and He knoweth best those who receive (true) Guidance. 7 Wherefore obey not thou the beliers. 8 they would wish you to be pliant so that they too may be pliant. 9 And do not obey every mean swearer, 10 Or backbiter, calumniator, slanderer, 11 those who hinder good, the guilty aggressor, 12 the coarse-grained, and above all mean and ignoble; 13 Simply because he possesses wealth and children. 14 and whenever Our verses are rehearsed to him, he says: “These are fairy- tales of times gone by.” 15 We will brand him upon the snout. 16 We have tested them in the same way as we tested the dwellers of the garden (in Yemen) when they swore to pluck all the fruits of the garden in the morning, 17 and made no allowance [for the will of God]: 18 Thereupon a calamity from your Lord passed over it while they were asleep, 19 and in the morning it was as if it were a garden plucked. 20 Now when they rose at early morn, they called unto one another, 21 "Go early to your tilth if you want to harvest the fruit!" 22 So they went off, whispering to one another, 23 [Saying], "There will surely not enter it today upon you [any] poor person." 24 And in the morning they went, having the power to prevent. 25 But when they saw the (garden), they said: "Verily, we have gone astray," 26 “In fact, we are unfortunate.” 27 A reasonable one among them said, "Did I not tell you that you should glorify God?" 28 They cried out: “Glory be to our Lord! Certainly we were sinners.” 29 Then they approached one another, blaming each other. 30 Saying: "Alas the woe, we were iniquitous. 31 It may be that our Lord will give us in exchange a better than it; to our Lord we humbly turn.' 32 Such was their punishment. But the punishment of the Everlasting Life is much greater, if they but knew. 33