The Pen (Al-Qalam)
In the name of Allah, the Entirely Merciful, the Especially Merciful
۞ Noon. I swear by the pen and what the angels write, 1 You are not demented by the grace of your Lord. 2 And indeed, for you is a reward uninterrupted. 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, your Lord knows better, who (among men) has gone astray from His Path, and He knows better those who are guided. 7 Do not, then, yield to those who reject the Truth, decrying it as false; 8 Fain would they that thou shouldst be pliant, so that they will be pliant. 9 And do not obey every worthless habitual swearer 10 A defamer, spreader abroad of slander. 11 hinderer of good, guilty aggressor, coarse-grained, 12 Ignoble, besides all that, base-born; 13 Is it because he is possessed of worldly goods 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 on his nose. 16 Surely We will try them as We tried the owners of the garden, when they swore that they would certainly cut off the produce in the morning, 17 and made no allowance [for the will of God]: 18 So there came upon the garden an affliction from your Lord while they were asleep. 19 So in the morning it became as if harvested. 20 In the morning they called to one another, 21 'Come forth betimes upon your tillage, if you would pluck!' 22 And so they departed, whispering to one another: 23 "Let no needy person come to you within it today." 24 They were resolved to repel the beggars. 25 But when they saw it, they said: Lo! we are in error! 26 Indeed, we are utterly ruined!" 27 The best among them said: Said I not unto you: Why glorify ye not (Allah)? 28 They answered: "Limitless in His glory is our Sustainer! Verily, we were doing wrong!" 29 Then they started blaming one another, 30 They said: "Woe to us! Verily, we were Taghun (transgressors and disobedient, etc.) 31 “Hopefully, our Lord will give us a better replacement than this – we now incline towards our Lord.” 32 Such is the punishment [of this world]. And the punishment of the Hereafter is greater, if they only knew. 33