The Pen (Al-Qalam)
In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful
۞ Nun. By the pen, and all that they write! 1 you are not, because of the favor of your Lord, mad. 2 And indeed for you is an unlimited reward. 3 And indeed, you are of a great moral character. 4 Anon thou wilt see and they will see. 5 Who is distracted. 6 Surely your Lord knows well those who have strayed from His Way just as He knows well those who are on the Right Way. 7 Do not give in to the deniers of truth. 8 They wish that you should be pliant so they (too) would be pliant. 9 Do not heed a contemptible swearer, 10 A defamer, spreader abroad of slander. 11 A preventer of good, transgressing and sinful, 12 Cruel, moreover, and an illegitimate pretender. 13 or that because he may possess wealth and children. 14 that, whenever Our messages are conveyed to him, such a one says, "Fables of ancient times"? 15 Soon shall We brand him on his snout. 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 ("if God wills"). 18 So an envoy from your Lord completed his round upon the garden, whilst they were sleeping. 19 and so by morning the orchard lay as though it had been fully harvested. 20 And they called one another at morning, 21 Saying: go out betimes to your tilth if ye would reap. 22 So they went off, saying one unto another in low tones: 23 “No destitute person shall enter it today.” 24 They set out early in the morning, thinking they had the power to prevent. 25 But as soon as they beheld the orchard, (they cried out): “We have certainly lost the way; 26 No. In fact we have been deprived of it." 27 The best among them said: Said I not unto you: Why glorify ye not (Allah)? 28 They said, “Purity is to our Lord – we have indeed been unjust.” 29 and then they turned upon one another with mutual reproaches. 30 They said, "O woe to us; indeed we were transgressors. 31 It may be that our Lord will give us better than this in place thereof. Lo! we beseech our Lord. 32 Such was the punishment. And verily the punishment of the Hereafter is greater if they did but know. 33