The Pen (Al-Qalam)
In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful
۞ Nun. By the pen and that which they write (therewith), 1 By the grace of your Lord, you are not a mad man. 2 and surely yours shall be a never-ending reward, 3 And verily thou art of a high and noble disposition. 4 Anon thou wilt see and they will see. 5 which of you was bereft of reason. 6 Verily, your Lord knows better, who (among men) has gone astray from His Path, and He knows better those who are guided. 7 Hence, defer not to [the likes and dislikes of] those who give the lie to the truth: 8 They would like you to relent to them so that they could also relent towards you. 9 And obey thou not every mean swearer, 10 [And] scorner, going about with malicious gossip - 11 those who hinder good, the guilty aggressor, 12 Crude, and above all, mean and infamous, 13 (who so acts) simply because he has wealth and sons, 14 When Our communications are recited to him, he says: Stories of those of yore. 15 We shall brand him on the muzzle. 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 And were not willing to set aside a portion (for the poor). 18 A visitor from your Lord circled around the garden during the night while they were asleep 19 and in the morning it was if the garden had been reaped. 20 In the morning 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, conversing in secret low tones (saying), 23 'No needy man shall enter it today against your will.' 24 They went betimes, strong in (this) purpose. 25 But as soon as they beheld the orchard, (they cried out): “We have certainly lost the way; 26 "Indeed we are shut out (of the fruits of our labour)!" 27 The most moderate of them said, "Did I not say to you, 'Why do you not exalt [Allah]?' " 28 They said: "Glory to our Lord! Verily we have been doing wrong!" 29 and then they turned upon one another with mutual reproaches. 30 They said, "Woe to us. We have been arrogant. 31 "It may be that our Lord will give us in exchange a better (garden) than this: for we do turn to Him (in repentance)!" 32 Such is the chastisement, and certainly the chastisement of the hereafter is greater, did they but know! 33