The Pen (Al-Qalam)
In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Most Merciful
۞ Nun. By the Pen, and what they inscribe, 1 By the grace of your Lord you are not mad. 2 And indeed, for you is a reward uninterrupted. 3 For you are verily born of sublime nature. 4 Soon wilt thou see, and they will see, 5 which of you is a prey to madness. 6 Surely your Lord best knows him who errs from His way, and He best knows the followers of the right course. 7 So do not comply with those who deny: 8 Their desire is that thou shouldst be pliant: so would they be pliant. 9 Furthermore, defer not to the contemptible swearer of oaths, 10 the fault-finder who goes around slandering, 11 hinderer of good, guilty aggressor, coarse-grained, 12 Gross, and therewithal ignoble. 13 or that because he may possess wealth and children. 14 That, when Our revelations are recited unto him, he saith: Mere fables of the men of old. 15 We will brand him on the nose. 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 saying, "If it be God's will." 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 Then they cried out unto each other in the morning. 21 That, “Go to your fields at early morn, if you want to harvest.” 22 And so they departed, whispering to one another: 23 No needy man shall enter it to-day against you. 24 And they went out betimes determined in purpose. 25 But when they saw it, they said, "Indeed, we are lost; 26 Aye! it is we who are deprived! 27 Said one of them, more just (than the rest): "Did I not say to you, 'Why not glorify (Allah)?'" 28 They said, "Glory be to God, our Lord. We have surely done wrong." 29 Then some of them drew near unto others, self-reproaching. 30 They said, "O woe to us; indeed we were transgressors. 31 "It may be that our Lord will give us in exchange a better (garden) than this: for we do turn to Him (in repentance)!" 32 Such was their punishment. But the punishment of the Everlasting Life is much greater, if they but knew. 33