The Pen (Al-Qalam)
In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful
۞ Noon. I swear by the pen and what the angels write, 1 Thou art not, by the Grace of thy Lord, mad or possessed. 2 And verily thine shall be a hire unending. 3 and you are certainly on the most exalted standard of moral excellence. 4 You shall see and they will see 5 which of you has been afflicted by insanity. 6 Indeed, your Lord is most knowing of who has gone astray from His way, and He is most knowing of the [rightly] guided. 7 Do not, then, yield to those who reject the Truth, decrying it as false; 8 They wish that thou shouldst compromise, then they would compromise. 9 And yield not to any mean swearer 10 Detracter, spreader abroad of slanders, 11 One who excessively forbids the good, transgressor, sinner. 12 the coarse-grained, and above all mean and ignoble; 13 or that because he may possess wealth and children. 14 When Our verses are recited to him, he says: 'They are but fairytales of the ancients' 15 We shall mark him upon his nose! 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 making exception. 18 Wherefore an encircling visitation visited it even as they slept on. 19 So by the morning it seemed as though picked clean. 20 Then they cried out unto each other in the morning. 21 "Go early to your tilth if you want to harvest 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 They set out early in the morning, thinking they had the power to prevent. 25 When they saw the garden, they said, "Surely we have lost our way. 26 No, rather, we have been prevented' 27 The best among them said, “Did I not tell you, ‘Why do you not proclaim His purity?’” 28 They said: hallowed be Our Lord! verily we have been wrong-doers. 29 Then they turned, one against another, in blaming. 30 They said 'Woe to us, truly we were insolent' 31 Maybe our Lord will give us better than this. We turn to our Lord in supplication." 32 Such is the chastisement, and certainly the chastisement of the hereafter is greater, did they but know! 33