The Pen (Al-Qalam)
In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful
۞ Nun. CONSIDER the pen, and all that they write [therewith]! 1 By the grace of your Lord, you are not a mad man. 2 There is surely reward unending for you, 3 And lo! thou art of a tremendous nature. 4 So you will soon see, and they too will see, 5 Which of you is afflicted with madness. 6 Your Lord knows best who has fallen by the wayside, and who has remained on the true path. 7 Then do not obey the deniers. 8 Their desire is that thou shouldst be pliant: so would they be pliant. 9 And do not obey every mean swearer, 10 the fault-finder who goes around slandering, 11 hinderer of good, guilty aggressor, coarse-grained, 12 ill-mannered, and moraly corrupt 13 just because he has wealth and sons, 14 that, whenever Our messages are conveyed to him, such a one says, "Fables of ancient times"? 15 We will soon singe his pig-nose. 16 We have put them [i.e., the Makkans] to test even as We put to test the owners of the orchard when they vowed that they would gather the fruit of their orchard in the morning, 17 Without saying: Insha' Allah (If Allah will). 18 Then a visitation from thy Lord visited it, while they were sleeping, 19 So it became as black, barren land. 20 And they cried out one unto another in the morning, 21 Saying: go out betimes to your tilth if ye would reap. 22 So they went off, whispering to one another, 23 No needy man shall enter it to-day against you. 24 – and early they went, strongly bent upon their purpose. 25 But when they saw it, they said: Lo! we are in error! 26 Nay, but we are desolate! 27 The best among them said: Said I not unto you: Why glorify ye not (Allah)? 28 They said: hallowed be Our Lord! verily we have been wrong-doers. 29 Then they began to reproach one another. 30 They said: woe unto us! verily we! we have been arrogant. 31 Maybe our Lord will give us a better orchard in its place; to our Lord do we penitently turn.” 32 Such is the torment if only they knew that the torment in the life hereafter will certainly be greater. 33