The Pen (Al-Qalam)
In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Most Merciful
۞ Noon. I swear by the pen and what the angels write, 1 Thou art not, by thy Sustainer's grace, a madman! 2 Surely thou shalt have a wage unfailing; 3 And indeed, you are of a great moral character. 4 So thou shalt see, and they will see, 5 which of you is afflicted with madness. 6 Verily thy Lord! He is the best Knower of him who strayeth from His path, and He is the best Knower of the guided one. 7 Then do not obey the deniers. 8 they would like thee to be soft [with them,] so that they might be soft [with thee]. 9 Furthermore, defer not to the contemptible swearer of oaths, 10 or to any defamer or one who spreads slander, 11 hinderer of good, guilty aggressor, coarse-grained, 12 [or] one who is cruel, by greed possessed, and in addition to all this, utterly useless [to his fellow-men]. 13 Because he* has some wealth and sons. (Walid bin Mugaira, who cursed the Holy Prophet.) 14 When you recite Our revelations to him, he says: "These are fables of long ago." 15 Soon shall We brand him on his 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 passed by on the (garden) something (fire) from your Lord at night and burnt it while they were asleep. 19 So by the morning it seemed as though picked clean. 20 And they cried out one unto another in the morning, 21 Saying: go out betimes to your tilth if ye would reap. 22 So they departed, talking in low voices: 23 "Let no beggar come to the garden". 24 They were resolved to repel the beggars. 25 But when they saw it, they said: Most surely we have gone astray 26 rather, we are utterly ruined.” 27 The more upright of the two said, "Did I not bid you to glorify God?" 28 They said, "All glory belongs to God. We have certainly been unjust". 29 Then they began to heap reproaches on each other. 30 [In the end] they said: "Oh, woe unto us! Verily, we did behave outrageously! 31 “Hopefully, our Lord will give us a better replacement than this – we now incline towards our Lord.” 32 Such was their punishment. But the punishment of the Everlasting Life is much greater, if they but knew. 33