The Pen (Al-Qalam)
In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate
۞ Noon. I swear by the pen and what the angels write, 1 Thou art not, for thy Lord's favour unto thee, a madman. 2 And verily, thine shall be a reward neverending 3 For you are truly of a sublime character. 4 Soon wilt thou see, and they will see, 5 which of you has been afflicted by insanity. 6 Verily, your Lord knows better, who (among men) has gone astray from His Path, and He knows better those who are guided. 7 Therefore, do not obey those who belie, 8 They wish that in some way you may yield, so they too might soften their stand. 9 Furthermore, defer not to the contemptible swearer of oaths, 10 back-biting, gossiping, 11 Hinderer of the good, transgressor, malefactor 12 [or] one who is cruel, by greed possessed, and in addition to all this, utterly useless [to his fellow-men]. 13 It is because he is possessed of wealth and children 14 When Our revelations are rehearsed unto him, he saith: fables of the ancients. 15 We shall brand him on the nose. 16 We have tried them as we tried the owners of a certain orchard, who vowed to harvest all its fruits the next morning, 17 But did not add: "If God may please." 18 Then a visitation from thy Lord visited it, while they were sleeping, 19 so that by the morrow it became barren and bleak. 20 Now when they rose at early morn, they called unto one another, 21 “Hurry to your orchard if you would gather its fruit.” 22 And so they departed, whispering to one another: 23 Saying: No poor man shall enter it today upon you. 24 They left early in the morning bent on this purpose. 25 But when they saw it, they said, "We must have lost our way. 26 (No, we are not lost.) In fact, we have been deprived of everything". 27 The best of them said: Did I not say to you, Why do you not glorify (Allah)? 28 "Glory to our Lord," they said; we were really in the wrong." 29 Some of them started to blame others. 30 They said: woe unto us! verily we! we have been arrogant. 31 Maybe, our Lord will give us instead one better than it; surely to our Lord do we make our humble petition. 32 Such is the chastisement; and the chastisement of the world to come, is assuredly greater, did they but know. 33