The Pen (Al-Qalam)
In the name of God, The Most Gracious, The Dispenser of Grace
۞ Noon. By the Pen and that (the angels) write, 1 Thou art not, for thy Lord's favour unto thee, a madman. 2 And verily thine shall be a hire unending. 3 And thou (standest) on an exalted standard of character. 4 So you will soon see, and they too will see, 5 Which of you is the demented. 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 listen to the deniers. 8 they would wish you to be pliant so that they too may be pliant. 9 And yield not to any mean swearer 10 [And] scorner, going about with malicious gossip - 11 [or] the withholder of good, [or] the sinful aggressor, 12 Cruel, moreover, and an illegitimate pretender. 13 Is it because he is possessed of worldly goods and children 14 When Our verses are recited to him, he says, “These are stories of earlier people.” 15 We will soon singe his pig-nose. 16 Indeed, We have tried them as We tried the companions of the garden, when they swore to cut its fruit in the [early] morning 17 without saying, "If it be God's will." 18 Then there encompassed it a visitation from your Lord while they were sleeping. 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 Saying: Run unto your field if ye would pluck (the fruit). 22 They all left, whispering to one another, 23 'No needy man shall enter it today against your will.' 24 They set out early in the morning, thinking they had the power to prevent. 25 Then when they beheld it, they said: verily we have strayed. 26 Aye! it is we who are deprived! 27 One who was temperate among them, said: "Did I not say: 'Why don't you priase God?'" 28 'Exaltations to Allah, our Lord' they said, 'We were truly harmdoers' 29 Some of them started to blame others. 30 They said: "Woe to us! Verily, we were Taghun (transgressors and disobedient, etc.) 31 Perhaps our Lord will substitute for us [one] better than it. Indeed, we are toward our Lord desirous." 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