The Pen (Al-Qalam)
In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful
۞ Noon. By the Pen and that (the angels) write, 1 By the grace of your Lord, you are not a mad man. 2 And lo! thine verily will be a reward unfailing. 3 and you are certainly on the most exalted standard of moral excellence. 4 You will see and they will also see 5 which of you is a prey to madness. 6 Verily, your Lord knows better, who (among men) has gone astray from His Path, and He knows better those who are guided. 7 Do not, then, yield to those who reject the Truth, decrying it as false; 8 they wish you would compromise, then, they would compromise. 9 Neither obey thou each feeble oath-monger, 10 the fault-finder who goes around slandering, 11 A preventer of good, transgressing and sinful, 12 Violent (and cruel),- with all that, base-born,- 13 or that because he may possess wealth and children. 14 When Our revelations are rehearsed unto him, he saith: fables 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 saying: Insha' Allah (If Allah will). 18 Then, a visitation from your Lord came down upon it while they slept, 19 and so by morning the orchard lay as though it had been fully harvested. 20 At daybreak they called out to one another: 21 [Saying], "Go early to your crop if you would cut the fruit." 22 So they departed, talking in low voices: 23 'No needy person shall set foot in it today' 24 And they left at early morn, assuming they were in control of their purpose. 25 But when they saw the (garden), they said: "Verily, we have gone astray," 26 “In fact, we are unfortunate.” 27 The most moderate of them said: said I not unto you, wherefore hallow him ye not! 28 "Glory to our Lord," they said; we were really in the wrong." 29 And they came blaming one another. 30 They said, "O woe to us; indeed we were transgressors. 31 Maybe our Lord will give us better than this. We turn to our Lord in supplication." 32 Such was their punishment, [in this life]. But the punishment of the life to come is much more severe, if only they knew it! 33