The Pen (Al-Qalam)
In the Name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful
۞ Nun. By the pen and by what you write, 1 Thou art not, through the grace of thy Lord, mad. 2 And verily thine shall be a hire unending. 3 And lo! thou art of a tremendous nature. 4 You will see and they will also see 5 which of you is the demented. 6 Surely thy Lord knows very well those who have gone astray from His way, and He knows very well those who are guided. 7 Therefore do not listen to the deniers. 8 they would like thee to be soft [with them,] so that they might be soft [with thee]. 9 Neither obey thou each feeble oath-monger, 10 Defamer, going about with slander 11 hinderer of good, guilty aggressor, coarse-grained, 12 moreover ignoble, 13 Is it because he is possessed of worldly goods and children 14 When Our verses are recited to him, he says: 'They are but fairytales of the ancients' 15 Anon We shall brand him on snout. 16 Now We have tried them, even as We tried the owners of the garden when they swore they would pluck in the morning 17 without adding to their swearing, (Allah willing, InshaAllah). 18 Then there encompassed it a visitation from your Lord while they were sleeping. 19 so that by the morrow it became barren and bleak. 20 As the morning broke, they called out, one to another,- 21 Saying: go out betimes to your tilth if ye would reap. 22 So they departed, whispering together, 23 "Let no needy person come to you within it today." 24 They set out early in the morning, thinking they had the power to prevent. 25 But as soon as they beheld the orchard, (they cried out): “We have certainly lost the way; 26 No. In fact we have been deprived of it." 27 The best among them said, “Did I not tell you, ‘Why do you not proclaim His purity?’” 28 They said, “Purity is to our Lord – we have indeed been unjust.” 29 Then they started blaming one another, 30 They said: "Woe to us! Verily, we were Taghun (transgressors and disobedient, etc.) 31 We hope that our Lord will give us in exchange a better (garden) than this. Truly, we turn to our Lord (wishing for good that He may forgive our sins, and reward us in the Hereafter)." 32 Such is the punishment (in this life), but truly, the punishment of the Hereafter is greater, if they but knew. 33