The Pen (al-Qalam)

¹ Noon. By the pen, and by what they inscribe.

² Mohammad, you are not insane.

³ In fact, you will have a reward that will never end.

⁴ You are of a great moral character.

• ^5-6 You will see, and they will see which of you is afflicted by the devil.

⁷ Your Lord knows best:

• who has strayed from His path, and
• who is the well-guided.

⁸ So do not obey the deniers.

• ⁹ They would like you to compromise, so that they would compromise too.

¹⁰ Do not obey:

• any vile swearer.
• ¹¹ the backbiter, spreader of slander
• ¹² the cruel, illegitimate pretender

¹⁴ Just because he has money and children, he says that Our Verses are “Myths of the ancients!” ¹⁶ We will brand him on his snout.

^17-18 We have tried them as We tried the companions of the garden, when they swore to cut its fruit in the [early] morning without any reservation.

¹⁹ This is why a calamity from your Lord came upon the garden while they slept. 20. In the morning it was as if picked.

21. In the morning, they called to one another:

People

Go early to your plantation, if you are going to harvest.

23. So off they went, murmuring to one another.

People

24. No poor person is to enter it upon you today.

25. So they went early.

26. But when they saw it, they said::

People

We were wrong. 27. We are now deprived.

28. The most reasonable of them said:

Someone

Did I not say to you, ‘if only you would glorify?’

People

29. Glory to our Lord! We were indeed in the wrong.

30. Then they turned to one another, blaming one another.

People

31. Woe to us—we were domineering. 32. Perhaps our Lord will give us a better substitute for it. We are turning to our Lord.

33. Such is the punishment. But the punishment of the Hereafter is greater, if they only knew.

34. For the righteous are Gardens of Delight with their Lord.

35. Shall We treat the Muslims like the villains?

36. What’s the matter with you [Mohammad]? How do you judge?

37. Do you have a scripture which you study 38. Wherein there is whatever you choose?

38. Or do you have oaths from Us, binding until the Day of Resurrection, that you will have whatever you demand?

39. Ask them, which of them will guarantee that.

40. Do they have partners? Then let them produce their partners, if they are truthful.

41. On the Day when the Shin will be exposed. They will be called to bow down, but they will be unable.

42. Their eyes subdued, shame will cover them. They were invited to bow down when they were sound.

43. So leave Me to those who reject this discourse. We will proceed against them gradually, from where they do not know.

44. I will give them respite. My plan is firm.

45. Or do you ask them for a fee, so they are burdened with debt?

46. Or do they know the future, and so they write it down?

47. So wait patiently for the Decision of your Lord, and do not be like the Fellow of the Fish who cried out in despair.

48. Were it not for his Lord’s favor that reached him, he would have been thrown into the wilderness, fully despised.

49. But his Lord chose him, and made him one of the righteous.

50. Those who disbelieve almost stab you with their glances when they hear the message and say “He [Prophet Mohammad] is crazy!”

51. But it is no less than a reminder to all the Worlds.