Sura-68 [ Al-Qalam Mecca 2]
The Quranic Text & Ali’s version:
مَا
أَنتَ بِنِعْمَةِ
رَبِّكَ بِمَجْنُونٍ ﴿٢﴾
68:2. Thou art not, by the grace of thy Lord, mad or possessed.
C5594. People usually call any one mad whose standards are different from their own. And madness is believed to be due to demoniacal possession, an idea distinctly in the minds of the New Testament writers: for Luke speaks of a man from whom the "devils" were cast out, as being then "clothed, and in his right mind" (Luke,8:35). (R).
وَإِنَّ
لَكَ لَأَجْرًا
غَيْرَ مَمْنُونٍ ﴿٣﴾
3. Nay, verily for thee is a Reward unfailing:
C5595. Instead of being out of his right mind, the Prophet of Allah had been raised to a great spiritual dignity, a reward that was not like an earthly reward that passes away, but one that was in the very core of his being, and would never fail him in any circumstances. He was really granted a nature and character far above the shafts of grief or suffering, slander or persecution.
وَإِنَّكَ
لَعَلى خُلُقٍ
عَظِيمٍ ﴿٤﴾
[wa innaka la’ala khulukin azim]
4. And thou (standest) on an exalted standard of character.
Asad’s Version:
IN THE chronological order of revelation, this surah most probably occupies the third place. Some authorities - among them Suyuti - incline to the view that it was revealed immediately after the first five verses of surah 96 ("The Germ-Cell"); this, however, is contradicted by some of the best-authenticated Traditions, according to which most of surah 74 came second in the order of revelation (see introductory note to that surah). In any case, "The Pen" is undoubtedly one of the oldest parts of the Qur'an.
Asad’s version
In The Name of God, The Most Gracious, The Dispenser of Grace:
68:1 Nun. 1 CONSIDER the pen, and all that they write [therewith] ! 2
(68:2) Thou art not, by thy Sustainer's grace, a madman! 3
(68:3) And, verily, thine shall be a reward neverending
(68:4) for, behold, thou keepest indeed to a sublime way of life; 4
Yuksel’s version
68:1 N50, the pen, and what they write.*
68:2 You are not, by the blessing of your Lord, crazy.
68:3 You will have a reward that is well deserved.
68:4 You are on a high moral standard.
[[Asad’s note:-
4 The term khuluq, rendered by me as "way of life", describes a person's "character", "innate disposition" or "nature" in the widest sense of these concepts, as well as "habitual behaviour" which becomes, as it were, one's "second nature" (Taj al-'Arus). My identification of khuluq with "way of life" is based on the explanation of the above verse by Abd Allah ibn Abbas (as quoted by Tabari), stating that this term is here synonymous with din: and we must remember that one of the primary significances of the
latter term is "a way [or "manner"] of behaviour" or "of acting" (Qamus). More over, we have several well-authenticated Traditions according to which Muhammad's widow A'ishah, speaking of the Prophet many years after his death, repeatedly stressed that "his way of life (khuluq) was the Qur'an." (Muslim, Tabari and Hakim, on the authority of Said ibn Hisham; Ibn Hanbal, Abu Da'ud and Nasa'i, on the authority of Al-Hasan al-Basri; Tabari, on the authority of Qatadah and Jubayr ibn Nufayl; and several other compilations).