The Pen (Al-Qalam)
In the name of God, The Most Gracious, The Dispenser of Grace
۞ Nun. [These letters (Nun, etc.) are one of the miracles of the Quran, and none but Allah (Alone) knows their meanings]. By the pen and what the (angels) write (in the Records of men). 1 You are not, [O Muhammad], by the favor of your Lord, a madman. 2 Indeed, there is an unfailing wage for you. 3 And indeed, you are of a great moral character. 4 And thou wilt see and they will see 5 which of you has been afflicted by insanity. 6 Your Lord knows best who has gone astray from His path and who is rightly guided. 7 Do not give in to the deniers of truth. 8 They wish that thou shouldst compromise, then they would compromise. 9 And do not obey every worthless habitual swearer 10 or to any defamer or one who spreads slander, 11 One who excessively forbids the good, transgressor, sinner. 12 Cruel, moreover, and an illegitimate pretender. 13 Because he is owner of riches and children. 14 That, when Our revelations are recited unto him, he saith: Mere fables of the men of old. 15 We will soon singe his pig-nose. 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 they added not the saving words. 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 As the morning broke, they called out, one to another,- 21 saying, "Be quick to reach your orchard, if you want to gather all your fruits." 22 They all left, whispering to one another, 23 No needy man shall enter it to-day against you. 24 And they went in the morning with strong intention, thinking that they have power (to prevent the poor taking anything of the fruits therefrom). 25 Then when they saw it, they said, “We have indeed strayed.” 26 Rather, we have been deprived." 27 The most moderate of them said: said I not unto you, wherefore hallow him ye not! 28 They said: hallowed be Our Lord! verily we have been wrong-doers. 29 and then they turned upon one another with mutual reproaches. 30 They said, "O woe to us; indeed we were transgressors. 31 Perhaps our Lord will replace it with a better garden. We turn in repentance to our Lord". 32 SUCH is the suffering [with which We try some people in this world]; but greater by far will be the suffering [which sinners shall have to bear] in the life to come - if they but knew it! 33