The Pen (Al-Qalam)
In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful
۞ Noon. I swear by the pen and what the angels write, 1 By the grace of your Lord, you are not a mad man. 2 And verily thine shall be a hire unending. 3 surely thou art upon a mighty morality. 4 You shall see and they will see 5 which of you is the demented. 6 Verily your Lord knows those who have gone astray from His path, and He knows those who are guided on the way. 7 Do not, then, yield to those who reject the Truth, decrying it as false; 8 They wish that you would soften [in your position], so they would soften [toward you]. 9 Do not heed a contemptible swearer, 10 The excessively insulting one, spreader of spite. 11 or to one who places obstacles in the way of good being done or to the wicked transgressor, 12 Greedy therewithal, intrusive. 13 (He was so) because he had wealth and children. 14 When Our verses are recited to him, he says, “These are stories of earlier people.” 15 Anon We shall brand him on snout. 16 Indeed, We have tried them as We tried the companions of the garden, when they swore to cut its fruit in the [early] morning 17 without adding ("if God wills"). 18 Then there encompassed it a visitation from your Lord while they were sleeping. 19 And by morning it lay as if it had already been harvested, a barren land. 20 At daybreak they called to each other: 21 Saying: Go early to your tilth if you would cut (the produce). 22 So off they went, whispering to one another: 23 'No needy person shall set foot in it today' 24 They left early in the morning bent on this purpose. 25 Then when they beheld it, they said: verily we have strayed. 26 "Indeed we are shut out (of the fruits of our labour)!" 27 Said the most moderate of them, 'Did I not say to you, "Why do you not give glory?"' 28 They said: hallowed be Our Lord! verily we have been wrong-doers. 29 Then they started blaming one another, 30 They said: Alas for us! In truth we were outrageous. 31 Maybe our Lord will give us better than this. We turn to our Lord in supplication." 32 Such was the punishment. And verily the punishment of the Hereafter is greater if they did but know. 33