The Pen (Al-Qalam)
In the name of Allah, most benevolent, ever-merciful
۞ Noon. By the Pen and that (the angels) write, 1 By the grace of your Lord you are not mad. 2 Most surely, you will have a never ending reward. 3 For you are truly of a sublime character. 4 So you will see, and they will realise, 5 which of you is the demented. 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 Therefore, do not obey those who belie, 8 they wish you would compromise, then, they would compromise. 9 And obey thou not every mean swearer, 10 The excessively insulting one, spreader of spite. 11 those who hinder good, the guilty aggressor, 12 Foul mouthed, and in addition to all this, of improper lineage. 13 (He was so) because he had wealth and children. 14 When Our revelations are rehearsed unto him, he saith: fables of the ancients. 15 Soon We will brand him on the nose. 16 We have tried them as we tried the owners of a certain orchard, who vowed to harvest all its fruits the next morning, 17 without adding to their swearing, (Allah willing, InshaAllah). 18 Wherefore an encircling visitation visited it even as they slept on. 19 So by the morning it seemed as though picked clean. 20 So they called out to each other at the break of dawn, 21 saying, "Be quick to reach your orchard, if you want to gather all your fruits." 22 So they went off, saying one unto another in low tones: 23 "Let no beggar come to the garden". 24 And they went out betimes determined in purpose. 25 Then when they beheld it, they said: verily we have strayed. 26 [and then,] "Nay, but we have been rendered destitute!" 27 The best of them said: Did I not say to you, Why do you not glorify (Allah)? 28 They said: Glory be to our Lord, surely we were unjust. 29 Then they began to heap reproaches on each other. 30 They said, 'Woe, alas for us! Truly, we were insolent. 31 “Hopefully, our Lord will give us a better replacement than this – we now incline towards our Lord.” 32 Such is Our chastisement; and the punishment of the Hereafter will be greater, if only they knew! 33