Surah Al-Qalam English Translation & Brief Tafsir

¹Listen, O humankind! These verses are a matchless miracle in both their recitation and their meaning. Give ear to this message, which is made up of letters you know very well, such as Nun, one of the letters of your own language. By the pen, which symbolizes the light of divine revelation, and by what those who write down the truths with it, line by line, have written!

²You are one on whom your Lord has bestowed prophethood, and, through every kind of blessing your Lord has given you, you are the last prophet, the one who takes humanity’s greatest concern to heart. Through this blessing of prophethood, and the Quran is witness to it, you are not, as the disbelievers claim, possessed by jinn, nor are you a poet. Pay no attention when, because you criticize the system of life of those who deny the truth and rise up against them, they say, “Are you out of your mind? Would we ever let you change our way of life?” They do not know that you have been equipped with knowledge by your Lord. Your Lord chose you from among them and honored you with messengership. In the face of the truths you explained to them, all they could say was, “He is possessed by jinn!”

³Truly, with your Lord there is, for you and for those who follow your path, a reward and recompense that will never run out. While calling people to live in keeping with the reasons for their creation, you will also receive help from Allah.

⁴O My Messenger, even the stubborn disbelievers who accuse you of madness actually know very well: you are certainly not possessed by jinn, as they claim. On the contrary, you are a person of sound mind, and you possess perfect moral character and an excellent way of life that will be an example for humanity. For you have been educated through the knowledge that comes from your Lord and guided to the human values most in keeping with humanity’s natural disposition (fitrah).

⁵So wait patiently and continue your task. Do not grieve over the lies they tell out of ignorance. Soon you too will see. Those who belittle you and oppose the way of life We invite them to will also soon see in whom the madness lies, whose mind is unsound, and what their end will be.

⁶Soon you too will know; those who pin these labels on you, associate partners with Allah, and deny what is made known in the Quran will know too. You will see which of you is a bewildered madman under the influence of jinn, and who has lost his mind. Who is the one who has fallen under Satan’s influence, is out of his mind, and has gone astray? The believers, who are the very image of honesty and virtue, or the disbelievers, who are steeped in sin?

⁷Of course, their words about who is mad and who is on the right path mean nothing! For your Lord knows best who fails to use his reason, chooses destruction, and strays from the right path. And He knows best who has attained guidance and who is on the right path. Allah, who knows everything hidden and open, is witness that you are on the right path and that those polytheists, by contrast, have strayed from tawhid.

⁸O Prophet, so convey the message of tawhid (affirming the oneness of Allah) to people and invite them to live an Allah-centered life. Do not yield to those who, by both their words and their deeds, deem the Truth a lie and deny the Quran you convey. Do not obey them because you are impressed by their great power, numbers, and wealth. Pay them no mind, and do not let them trouble you. Be gentle and merciful toward all people, but do not cover up the truths the Quran sets forth in the name of tolerance! And never hold back, even for a moment, from proclaiming the truth aloud to those who do not accept the call.

⁹For they are used to settling everything with power and money. That is why they expect you to become someone who says nothing against their systems of shirk and to compromise on at least part of the call you make in Allah’s name. They want you to be soft with them, to tell them what they would like to hear, and to give up the cause of tawhid. If you were like that, you would treat them well and they would treat you well; and so you would reach a compromise at a certain point. Had you gone along with their desires, they would have said of you, “He is a good man, a pleasant man; he speaks well.” All they want is for you to defend their positions, their status, and their interests. But if you follow their deviations and compromise on Allah’s religion, in the end they will appear to have come to terms with you, and they will make you like themselves.

¹⁰O Prophet! You are the best example of good character. You were sent to transform a society from bad to good. Do not be deceived by the disbelievers’ offers of ‘bargaining in religion,’ and do not go along with them. Nor obey anyone who has these traits: Pay no regard to the base and contemptible types who, in order to mislead people, constantly swear oaths without distinguishing right from wrong or true from false.

¹¹Give no credence to those who constantly find fault with people who do not think as they do, who condemn and disparage them, and who carry tales back and forth. Nor give credence to those who toy with people’s honor and spread gossip.

¹²Do not follow the aggressors who obstruct every kind of goodness and good deed, nor those who knowingly persist in committing sin.

¹³Nor pay any heed to the insolent degenerates who have become the symbol of every kind of evil, who are coarse and disrespectful, and, on top of all that, notorious for their wickedness.

¹⁴Some of them are wrongdoers who boast of their abundant wealth and many children and see themselves as mighty. Moreover, never show closeness to those who swagger and transgress because they have wealth and children, and who consider themselves powerful. This type of person, because of his economic and social means, is seized by brazen arrogance. Believing that what was given to him by your Lord was earned by himself, he grows insolent.

¹⁵When Our verses are recited to them, they say mockingly, “These do not speak of us, but of past generations. These are fabricated tales of the ancients. The rulings of the Quran are outdated rules, unnecessary and invalid in our time.” Yet the verses counsel them to abandon their transgression and insolence and enter the right path.

¹⁶Be patient. Soon We will mark them with the brand of the people of Hell. We will brand the noses of these insolent, tyrannical, and arrogant people, noses that are the symbol of their pride, and break their arrogance. We will bring upon them a humiliation they cannot escape. On the Day of Reckoning, the mark on their noses will make it clear that these were insolent, ungrateful, and transgressing people.

¹⁷Let the polytheists of Mecca, who deny the prophethood of Our Messenger and look down on him while boasting of the wealth they own, not forget that it is Allah who granted them that wealth. He granted them this wealth as a means of testing them. What they should do is not grow arrogant, but give thanks to Allah, who gave them these blessings, live in keeping with tawhid, serve Him alone, and believe in Our Messenger. Now, as a lesson to take to heart, We will tell them what became of the owners of the garden, who in the past, like them, were ungrateful for divine blessings! There were once several brothers who owned a large and fertile garden inherited from their father, a charitable man and a person of tawhid. Instead of giving thanks for this divine blessing as their father had, thinking of the poor and helping them, they were ungrateful to Allah and cut off the help their father used to give. We had put the owners of the garden through a severe test because, despite the blessings We had given them, they did not take Us into account. Recall that while their father was alive, those garden owners used to give the poor their right from their property. But when their father died, they stopped giving their wealth to the poor, with various excuses. So this man’s sons, having become selfish, swore confidently and boastfully that when morning came they would harvest the crops without letting the poor see. Yet this was not entirely in their hands. They could not even know whether the vineyard, or they themselves, would survive until morning. But their attachment to the world had dragged them into such heedlessness.

¹⁸They did not even take into consideration the warnings of their brother among them, a man of sound judgment, who said, “Let us set aside the right of the poor from our property.” Moreover, in their oaths they did not take Allah’s permission and will into account. That is, they did not even feel the need to say, “Insha’Allah (if Allah wills), we will do it tomorrow,” or, “If Allah permits, we will accomplish this too.” It never even crossed their minds that Allah is the true owner of everything.

¹⁹But while they were asleep at night, something entirely unforeseen happened. A calamity sent by your Lord suddenly engulfed the garden they believed they owned. A fire broke out in the valley where the garden lay and scorched that vineyard and garden down to the roots, consuming it completely. By morning their garden had turned into a ruin, and their crops were gone.

²⁰While they were still asleep, their garden full of fruit withered, turned pitch black, and became jet-black ash.

²¹When they woke up in the morning, they knew nothing of what had happened during the night, and they cheerfully called out to one another:

²²“We must hurry and go early to our garden to harvest our crop.”

²³Then, having made their preparations out of sight of the poor and needy, they hurried off toward their garden. Determined not to give anything to anyone, they were whispering secretly to one another:

²⁴“Beware! Let no poor person come before us today to beg. Let us gather our crop early,” they were saying. They had decided that no one should have a share in even a small part of their crop. Yet they made those poor people do the hard labor. It was thanks to these very people, too, that they would obtain the crops of that vineyard and garden. They should have considered that the garden and its crops belonged to Allah, who owned it before them and gave it to them, and who watched over their garden while they slept. In it lay both the right of Allah and many rights of Allah’s poor servants. But when they should have met the needs of those poor people for Allah’s sake, they turned to ingratitude instead.

²⁵Although they were able to help the poor, they wanted to deprive them of help. Determined to give the poor nothing, and as if they had the power to achieve every goal they wished, they set out early. For they were quite certain they would gather their fruit.

²⁶But when they saw the garden bone-dry, burned, and devastated, they could not believe their eyes and stood frozen. They did not recognize their own garden. “No, this cannot be! We are ruined! We must have lost our way and come to the wrong place. This is not our garden!” they said.

²⁷But when they realized that they had not come to the wrong place, that the place they had come to was their own garden, and that this was a test from Allah, they said: “No, we have not come to the wrong place! While trying to deprive the poor, it is actually we who have met with disaster. Because of the offense we committed, we have lost our garden’s crops, its income, and all our wealth. For we resolved to give nothing to the poor, and we did not say ‘insha’Allah’ for anything we did. It is not those poor people but we ourselves who have suddenly become poor.” Saying this, they collapsed, full of regret and in a wretched state.

²⁸One among them who could think more soundly than the others, a moderate and sensible person, seeing their state, said: “Did I not tell you, ‘Do not be so sure of yourselves, give up these evil plans of yours, do not put Allah out of your minds, and respect the right of the poor and needy’? I had warned you many times before: should you not remember Allah and glorify His name, and, in return for so many blessings, give Allah and His poor servants their due?”

²⁹Thereupon the owners of the garden realized their mistake, came to their senses, and said: “Our Lord! You are the true owner of everything. From now on, in everything we do, we will say ‘insha’Allah,’ and we will exalt You, declaring You free of every imperfection and glorifying You. Truly, we have been blind to the truth. Forgetting that You are the giver of blessings and the true owner of all property, we did not give the poor their right, and we were stingy. We have truly been acting against the purpose of our creation. Truly, by not respecting the right of the poor and needy, we have done ourselves harm.” Saying this, they began to beat their knees in regret.

³⁰Following this regret, they began to blame one another. Confessing their offense and acknowledging their helplessness, they reproached themselves, felt remorse, and found the remedy in turning to their Lord. But it was already too late.

³¹At last they said: “Woe to us! It turns out that, in our greed for wealth, we had grown very insolent and arrogant. We behaved brazenly, as if Allah did not exist, and overstepped our bounds. But we have acknowledged our offense and have repented.”

³²Then they turned to one another and said, “If we come to our senses, feel remorse, and strive to live in keeping with His good pleasure, perhaps our Lord will pity us and have mercy on us. He will give us something better in place of our garden that has turned to ash. We have learned our lesson, and so we have learned that we must believe in Allah as the one and only God. For from now on we place our hope not in vineyards and gardens, but in our Lord alone.” But by then it was too late. Such has been the punishment of those who are ungrateful for divine blessings and look down on the poor. The punishment such people will receive in the Hereafter will be greater still.

³³This is how We punish those who transgress and grow insolent. Such is the punishment We send in this world to test unjust people who have strayed from the right path, and such is the punishment that awaits the sinners. Sometimes it comes through the burning of a vineyard or a garden, and sometimes through the loss of a life or of a loved one. This is the punishment, in the life of this world, of those who do not take Allah into account. But know well that the real punishment of the Hereafter that the sinners will suffer is not temporary; it lasts forever, and it is of course far more severe. If only they knew this truth, they would keep away from sins just as they keep away from fire.

³⁴As for the God-conscious (muttaqin), who hold Allah in heartfelt reverence and guard themselves against defying Him: for the believers who find their way through Allah’s Book and live with a sense of responsibility toward Allah, there are gardens of bliss as a reward. In other words, those who guard themselves against everything that does not please Allah are awaited, with their Lord, by gardens of Paradise more beautiful than all the vineyards and gardens of the world and furnished with never-ending blessings. The true and lasting home is those gardens of bliss with their Lord.

³⁵O polytheists! So you see yourselves on the right path and Our Messenger Muhammad on the wrong path, and you consider yourselves the winners in Allah’s sight. Truly, that is a very wrong way of thinking. Would We treat as equal the Muslims, who know that Allah is the true owner of wealth and property, use their wealth in line with His good pleasure, and wholeheartedly submit to Allah’s will, and the guilty and sinful, who say, “Life is mine; I will live as I please”? Never! The obedient, who submit to their Lord and wholeheartedly yield to Allah’s rulings, and the disbelieving, rebellious frauds, who turn their backs on Him and grow arrogant, are certainly not the same.

³⁶O heedless people! The truth being so, what basis and proof do you have on this matter, that you claim to be superior to the believers? What is the matter with you when you say, “There is no resurrection after death; when we die, the end of the Muslim and the non-Muslim will be the same”? Come to your senses! What kind of error is this? In the face of the truth, how can you claim something so false? As if you were the true owners of what Allah has entrusted to you, by what logic do you reason, and how foolishly you judge!

³⁷Or do you have a divine scripture that tells you that you will have whatever you want of Allah’s creation, and that contains secrets no one else could know? Is there perhaps a holy scripture sent down from heaven, an alternative to the Quran, which you read and learn from, and do you read these false and erroneous judgments of yours from it?

³⁸Or do you pick out, from the rulings you read, those that suit your interests? Is there a verse written in it that says, “You have been given the right to fulfill your every desire in this world; you will be given whatever you want, as you please”? No! Everything in your hands is Ours, and it stays with you as a trust. You cannot use it however you like. Do not forget that rulings made according to your interests have no value in the sight of Allah.

³⁹What is the reason for this arbitrariness? Or is it written in that scripture, “Every ruling you make is your legitimate right; you are authorized to make every kind of decision”? Have you received from Us a promise, given to you under oath and valid until the Day of Resurrection, saying, “You may judge however you like and in your own interest”? Is that why you judge as you please?

⁴⁰If they say, “There is such a promise,” this claim is the greatest lie in the world. O Prophet! Now go ahead and ask them the reason for this conviction of theirs: Which of the polytheists will take this on and defend it? Who among them could vouch that We made such a promise? Who among them could guarantee that this conduct of theirs will not harm them?

⁴¹Or do they have someone besides Allah to protect them? Or do they have gods who share power and authority with Allah? Or do they have helpers who send them revelation whenever they wish and who will back up and confirm their lies? Then, if they are telling the truth, let them show the partners and allies who support them. Let them bring their proofs from the scriptures in which they think these partners hold such powers! Can they be proven right? No! They can never prove their claims, for they are lying. On the Day of Reckoning they will pay for this in the severest way. These are people who place intermediaries between themselves and Allah and believe that those intermediaries will favor them in Allah’s sight.

⁴²Remind them! The Day of Resurrection, when their lies will be exposed and they will want to flee, will surely come. The day will come when the records of deeds are opened. For those who deny, things will become hard and panic will break out, and everyone’s knees will give way. That is a day when all hidden truths will be laid bare, and reckoning and punishment will prevail in all their terror. On the Day of Reckoning, when the deniers will be powerless to protect themselves, they will be called to fall prostrate before Allah. But even though they will want to, they will not have the strength to prostrate. On that day, let these partners they claim come and help them, and let us see! They will be asked, “Who, then, is supreme and exalted?” And they will not be able to say, “Our Lord! You are the Supreme and Exalted One!” They will name whomever they regarded as supreme and exalted in the world. Just as their tongues did not turn to the truth in the world, their tongues will not turn to the truth in the Hereafter either.

⁴³On that day they will look toward the ground out of shame and regret. A terrible fear will cover their eyes, and they will feel humiliation to the marrow of their bones. Yet in the world, while they were at ease, they had been offered many opportunities and had been invited again and again by Our messengers to prostrate before Allah and to believe. But they had stubbornly rejected this invitation. Let them remember! They had been asked to exalt Allah and to live according to Allah’s laws. But they rebelled. They said, “We will not act according to laws that are outdated, irrational, and unscientific!” Following Satan, they lived according to ideologies and laws they had made up in their own heads. Granting superiority and exaltedness to others besides Allah, they held those others’ principles and laws in the highest esteem.

⁴⁴O Prophet! Do not grieve over what is done by those who, although they are invited through the revealed verses to live by an order and morality whose limits Allah has set, turn away from it and call you a liar! Leave to Me those who keep setting traps for you at every opportunity and deny this Quran and its rulings. I Myself will deal with those wrongdoers! Because they persistently deny the truth, We will draw them little by little toward destruction, from a direction they never expect and in a way they will never notice. We give them worldly things such as wealth and property, children, position, and fame, which they suppose will be good for them. Thinking that there is no fault or error in them, and that what they have gained is a favor to them, they will keep on sinning, and so, without giving them a chance to notice, We will bring them step by step closer to the punishment. Yet the end of this respite We give those disbelievers is dreadful. They cannot see that these blessings are not a favor to them but a cause of trial and disaster, and with every step they draw closer to the punishment.

⁴⁵I am granting them respite until the term I have set runs out, so that they may come to their senses and turn to what is right. Certainly, against the traps they set, My plan is far firmer and My punishment far more severe, and no one can prevent it. We have given them a set period in the world. For now, let them live as they please and go on setting traps for those who believe in Allah. They have no idea! It is We who are setting the real trap for them. Although they deny Our verses, they suppose themselves to be on the right path, and they keep increasing their transgression and multiplying the offenses they commit. But no one can escape the reckoning.

⁴⁶O Prophet! Why, then, do they still not believe? Or are you asking them for a wage in return for this task of conveying the message, because you tell them the truth? And are they being crushed under this heavy debt they would have to pay you? Is it because they fear being left under a burden of debt that they do not accept your message? Of course not! It is not possible for you, or for the callers who follow your path, to ask any wage in return for conveying the message. Know that the wage of those who believe in their Lord and convey to people the truths that come from their Lord is paid by your Lord.

⁴⁷Or do they receive revelation confirming their claims, and is that why they lay down the law like this? Do they possess knowledge of the unseen showing that their stance is justified and right, and is that why they claim that the warnings you give are not true? Do they look into it and record the information they want and the nonsense they utter? Is that why they feel no need for the Quran’s guidance and choose their own rulings over Ours? Yet all that falls to the human being is to follow his Lord’s rulings.

⁴⁸O My Messenger! Their excuses never end. Since the deniers will not give up their transgression, then you too continue, with patience, to invite them to the system of life for which they were created. Until Allah’s word about granting respite to the disbelievers is fulfilled, wait patiently for your Lord’s judgment in the face of the disbelievers’ mockery and persecution. Do not give in to despair. Do not be hasty like the Prophet Jonah, the companion of the great fish, who neglected his duty of calling people by leaving his post. Do not lose heart, give up hope, or abandon the struggle. Recall how he, worried, “My people do not listen to me. Calamity and misfortune will come upon them because of me,” left the community to which he had been tasked with explaining Our verses. Then he boarded a ship, but the ship was in danger of sinking because of a great storm that came up suddenly. The ship’s crew, thinking that this had befallen them because of a sinner among them, drew lots to find that person, and each time the lot fell to Jonah. Thereupon Jonah was thrown into the sea, and a great fish swallowed him. In the belly of the fish, in deep sorrow, he choked back his grief and called upon his Lord in prayer.

⁴⁹The mistake he made was so great that, had a blessing from his Lord, namely the acceptance of Jonah’s repentance, not come to his rescue, he would have been cast, wretched and naked, onto a shore, or left alone in the depths of the oceans.

⁵⁰But because Jonah sincerely repented and returned to his Lord, his Lord forgave him and, placing him among the honest and virtuous, made him once again one of the righteous. So, O Muslim! Take Jonah’s case as a lesson, and never give in to anger and despair and neglect the duty of conveying the message! Remember Jonah well and what befell him! Keep on explaining Our verses to people with resolve and determination!

⁵¹O Prophet! Despite so much counsel and warning, the polytheists and disbelievers who deny Our verses harbored hostility toward you. That is why, when they heard the Quran, which is divine counsel, they looked at you with glares so full of rancor and hatred that it was as if they would bring the world crashing down on your head, kill you, and knock you to the ground. Even so, to discredit you and turn people away from you, they were still saying, “This man has certainly fallen under the influence of jinn and gone mad. Otherwise he would never even think of changing the system of life we have followed for so many years, nor attempt something so impossible.”

⁵²Yet had they examined the Quran with an eye free of prejudice, they would have clearly seen this: this Quran they deny is a lesson and a warning that people need to reflect on. At the same time, it is a universal call and counsel that embraces not only the Arabs of that time but all of humanity, calling them to the reason for their creation.