Surah The Pen [Al-Qalam] in English

Nun. By the pen and what the scribes write.

By your Lord's Grace, you are not afflicted with madness,

and surely yours shall be a never-ending reward,

and you are certainly on the most exalted standard of moral excellence.

So you will soon see, and they too will see,

which of you is afflicted with madness.

Surely your Lord knows well those who have strayed from His Way just as He knows well those who are on the Right Way.

Do not, then, yield to those who reject the Truth, decrying it as false;

they would wish you to be pliant so that they too may be pliant.

And do not yield to any contemptible swearer,

the fault-finder who goes around slandering,

the hinderer of good, the transgressor, the sinful;

the coarse-grained, and above all mean and ignoble;

(who so acts) simply because he has wealth and sons,

and whenever Our verses are rehearsed to him, he says: “These are fairy- tales of times gone by.”

Soon shall We brand him on his snout.

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,

without making any allowance (for the will of Allah).

Thereupon a calamity from your Lord passed over it while they were asleep,

and so by morning the orchard lay as though it had been fully harvested.

At daybreak they called out to one another:

“Hurry to your orchard if you would gather its fruit.”

So off they went, whispering to one another:

“No destitute person shall enter it today.”

They went forth early, believing that they had the power (to gather the fruit).

But as soon as they beheld the orchard, (they cried out): “We have certainly lost the way;

rather, we are utterly ruined.”

The best among them said: “Did I not say to you: why do you not give glory to (your Lord)?”

They cried out: “Glory be to our Lord! Certainly we were sinners.”

Then they began to reproach one another.

They said: “Woe to us! We had indeed transgressed.

Maybe our Lord will give us a better orchard in its place; to our Lord do we penitently turn.”

Such is the chastisement; and the chastisement of the Hereafter is assuredly even greater, if only they knew.

Surely the God-fearing shall have Gardens of bliss with their Lord.

What! Shall We treat those who have submitted (to Our command) like those who have acted as criminals?

What is the matter with you? How ill do you judge!

Or do you have a Book wherein you read

that (in the Hereafter) you shall have all that you choose for yourselves?

Or have We sworn a covenant with you which We are bound to keep till the Day of Resurrection, (a covenant requiring that whatever you ordain for yourselves shall be yours)?

Ask them: “Which of them can guarantee that?

Or has something been guaranteed by any of those whom they associate with Allah in His Divinity?” If so, let them bring forth their associates, if they are truthful.

On the Day when the dreadful calamity will unfold, when people will be summoned to prostrate themselves, and yet they will not be able to prostrate.

Their eyes shall be downcast and ignominy shall overwhelm them. For when they were safe and sound, they were summoned to prostrate themselves, (and they refused).

So leave Me, (O Prophet), to deal with him who gives the lie to this Discourse. We shall draw them little by little (to their undoing) in a way that they will not know.

I am giving them a respite. Great is My scheme!

Or are you asking them for some compensation so that they feel burdened with debt?

Or do they have any knowledge of the Unseen which they are now writing down?

So bear with patience until the Judgement of your Lord comes, and do not belike the man in the fish (i.e., Jonah) who called out, choking with grief:

had his Lord not bestowed His favour upon him, he would have been cast upon that barren shore (and would have remained there) in disgrace.

But his Lord exalted him, and included him among His righteous servants.

When the unbelievers hear this Exhortation, they look at you as though they would knock you off your feet with their (hostile) glances. They say: “Surely he is afflicted with madness”;