The Pen (Al-Qalam)
In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate
۞ Nun. By the pen and by what you write, 1 Thou art not, through the grace of thy Lord, mad. 2 And lo! thine verily will be a reward unfailing. 3 And verily thou art of a high and noble disposition. 4 Soon you will see, as will they, 5 which of you has been afflicted by insanity. 6 Surely your Lord best knows him who errs from His way, and He best knows the followers of the right course. 7 Therefor obey not thou the rejecters 8 They only want that you should relent, so that they may come to terms. 9 And do not obey every mean swearer, 10 Or backbiter, calumniator, slanderer, 11 the hinderer of good, the transgressor, the sinful; 12 ill-mannered, and moraly corrupt 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 shall brand him upon the muzzle! 16 Verily, We have tried them as We tried the people of the garden, when they swore to pluck the fruits of the (garden) in the morning, 17 without adding to their swearing, (Allah willing, InshaAllah). 18 Then, a visitation from your Lord came down upon it while they slept, 19 and in the morning it was as if it were a garden plucked. 20 And they called out to each other in the morning, 21 [Saying], "Go early to your crop if you would cut the fruit." 22 So they departed, whispering together, 23 "Let no beggar come to the garden". 24 And they went out betimes determined in purpose. 25 But when they saw it, they said: Most surely we have gone astray 26 (Then they said): "Nay! Indeed we are deprived of (the fruits)!" 27 The best among them said: “Did I not say to you: why do you not give glory to (your Lord)?” 28 They said, "Glory be to God, our Lord. We have surely done wrong." 29 Then they turned, one against another, in reproach. 30 Said they: O woe to us! surely we were inordinate: 31 It may be that our Lord will give us in exchange a better than it; to our Lord we humbly turn.' 32 Such is the chastisement; and the chastisement of the Hereafter is assuredly even greater, if only they knew. 33