The Pen (Al-Qalam)
In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful
۞ Nun. CONSIDER the pen, and all that they write [therewith]! 1 Thou art not, by the Grace of thy Lord, mad or possessed. 2 You will certainly receive a never-ending reward. 3 surely thou art upon a mighty morality. 4 You shall see and they will see 5 which of you is the demented. 6 Your Lord knows best who has fallen by the wayside, and who has remained on the true path. 7 Then do not obey the deniers. 8 they would wish you to be pliant so that they too may be pliant. 9 And obey not thou any swearer ignominous. 10 the fault-finder who goes around slandering, 11 hinderer of good, guilty aggressor, coarse-grained, 12 ill-mannered, and moraly corrupt 13 Because he* has some wealth and sons. (Walid bin Mugaira, who cursed the Holy Prophet.) 14 When Our verses are recited to him, he says: 'They are but fairytales of the ancients' 15 We shall brand him on his nose. 16 [As for such sinners,] behold, We [but] try them as We tried the owners of a certain garden who vowed that they would surely harvest its fruit on the morrow, 17 And they did not say, “If Allah wills”. 18 Then there passed by on the (garden) something (fire) from your Lord at night and burnt it while they were asleep. 19 So it became as black, barren land. 20 And they cried out one unto another in the morning, 21 'Come forth betimes upon your tillage, if you would pluck!' 22 So off they went, whispering to one another: 23 No needy man shall enter it to-day against you. 24 And they left at early morn, assuming they were in control of their purpose. 25 But when they saw it, they said, "Indeed, we are lost; 26 No. In fact we have been deprived of it." 27 Said the most right-minded among them: "Did I not tell you, 'Will you not extol God's limitless glory?'" 28 They said, 'Glory be to God, our Lord; truly, we were evildoers.' 29 And they came blaming one another. 30 They said, 'Woe, alas for us! Truly, we were insolent. 31 Maybe our Lord will give us a better orchard in its place; to our Lord do we penitently turn.” 32 Such is the torment if only they knew that the torment in the life hereafter will certainly be greater. 33