The Pen (Al-Qalam)
In the name of God, The Most Gracious, The Dispenser of Grace
۞ Nun. By the Pen, and what they inscribe, 1 You are not demented by the grace of your Lord. 2 Indeed, there is an unfailing wage for you. 3 And thou (standest) on an exalted standard of character. 4 So very soon, you will see and they too will realise – 5 Which of you is the afflicted [by a devil]. 6 Surely your Lord knows well those who have strayed from His Way just as He knows well those who are on the Right Way. 7 Therefor obey not thou the rejecters 8 They wish that you should be pliant so they (too) would be pliant. 9 And do not yield to any contemptible swearer, 10 the fault-finder who goes around slandering, 11 obstructing virtues, a sinful transgressor, 12 Cruel, after all that base-born (of illegitimate birth), 13 It is because he is possessed of wealth and children 14 That, when Our revelations are recited unto him, he saith: Mere fables of the men of old. 15 We will soon singe his pig-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 And they made not the exception. 18 Thereupon a calamity from your Lord passed over it while they were asleep, 19 So the (garden) became, by the morning, like a dark and desolate spot, (whose fruit had been gathered). 20 And they cried out one unto another in the morning, 21 Saying: Run unto your field if ye would pluck (the fruit). 22 Thus they launched forth, whispering unto one another, 23 "Let not a single indigent person break in upon you into the (garden) this day." 24 They went betimes, strong in (this) purpose. 25 When they saw (and did not recognise it) they said: "Surely we have lost the way. 26 "Indeed we are shut out (of the fruits of our labour)!" 27 The best among them said, “Did I not tell you, ‘Why do you not proclaim His purity?’” 28 They said: Glorified be our Lord! Lo! we have been wrong-doers. 29 And they advanced one upon another, blaming each other. 30 They said, "Alas for us, our behaviour was beyond the pale. 31 Perhaps our Lord will replace it with a better garden. We turn in repentance to our Lord". 32 SUCH is the suffering [with which We try some people in this world]; but greater by far will be the suffering [which sinners shall have to bear] in the life to come - if they but knew it! 33