The Pen (Al-Qalam)
In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate
۞ Noon. I swear by the pen and what the angels write, 1 By your Lord's Grace, you are not afflicted with madness, 2 Most surely, you will have a never ending reward. 3 And verily, you (O Muhammad SAW) are on an exalted standard of character. 4 So you will 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 Their desire is that thou shouldst be pliant: so would they be pliant. 9 And do not obey every mean swearer, 10 A slanderer, going about with calumnies, 11 Forbidder of good, outstepping the limits, sinful, 12 the coarse-grained, and above all mean and ignoble; 13 because he has wealth and sons. 14 That, when Our revelations are recited unto him, he saith: Mere fables of the men of old. 15 [For this] We shall brand him with indelible disgrace! 16 Verily We! We have proved them even as We proved the fellows of a garden when they sware that they would surely reap it in the morning. 17 And were not willing to set aside a portion (for the poor). 18 Then a visitation from thy Lord came upon it while they slept 19 Then in the morning it became as though it had been reaped. 20 (Then) in the morning they called out to one another, saying: 21 [Saying], "Go early to your crop if you would cut the fruit." 22 So they departed, conversing in secret low tones, (saying)- 23 "Be sure to stop any poor person from entering the orchard today." 24 – and early they went, strongly bent upon their purpose. 25 But when they saw it, they said, 'Surely we are gone astray; 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, "Glory be to God, our Lord. We have surely done wrong." 29 Then some of them advanced against others, blaming each other. 30 They said, "Woe to us. We have been arrogant. 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