The Pen (Al-Qalam)
In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful
۞ Nun. CONSIDER the pen, and all that they write [therewith]! 1 Thou art not, by the Grace of thy Lord, mad or possessed. 2 Surely thou shalt have a wage unfailing; 3 for, behold, thou keepest indeed to a sublime way of life; 4 So you shall see, and they (too) shall see, 5 Which of you is afflicted with madness. 6 Surely your Lord best knows him who errs from His way, and He best knows the followers of the right course. 7 So do not yield to the rejecters. 8 They wish that you should be pliant so they (too) would be pliant. 9 Furthermore, defer not to the contemptible swearer of oaths, 10 [And] scorner, going about with malicious gossip - 11 hinderer of good, guilty aggressor, coarse-grained, 12 the crude of low character 13 Because he is owner of riches and children. 14 that, whenever Our messages are conveyed to him, such a one says, "Fables of ancient times"? 15 We shall mark him upon his nose! 16 We have tested them in the same way as we tested the dwellers of the garden (in Yemen) when they swore to pluck all the fruits of the garden in the morning, 17 without adding to their swearing, (Allah willing, InshaAllah). 18 whereupon a visitation for thy Sustainer came upon that [garden] while they were asleep, 19 And by morning it lay as if it had already been harvested, a barren land. 20 At daybreak they called out to one another: 21 "If you want to gather the fruits, let us go early to the plantation." 22 So they departed, talking in low voices: 23 'No needy person shall set foot in it today' 24 They left early in the morning bent on this purpose. 25 Then when they beheld it, they said: verily we have strayed. 26 No, rather, we have been prevented' 27 One who was temperate among them, said: "Did I not say: 'Why don't you priase God?'" 28 They said, "Exalted is our Lord! Indeed, we were wrongdoers." 29 Then some of them drew near unto others, self-reproaching. 30 They said: “Woe to us! We had indeed transgressed. 31 Maybe our Lord will give us a better orchard in its place; to our Lord do we penitently turn.” 32 Such was the punishment. And verily the punishment of the Hereafter is greater if they did but know. 33