Sūrah Al-Qalam The Pen: Tafsīr al-Ṭabarī The Source Commentary

Surah Overview

DetailInformationClassificationSignificance

SurahالقلمMakkī 52 versesPen oath, madness accusation refutation, garden parable

Key DisagreementWhat is the pen that Allah swears by (68:1)?Pen identityAl-Ṭabarī: the first pen that wrote the divine decree through chains from Ibn ʿAbbās identifying it as the pen of divine destiny

Competing OpinionsWhat does "You are not, by the favor of your Lord, a madman" (68:2) specifically refute?Occasion of accusationAl-Ṭabarī: the specific Quraysh accusation that the Prophet's revelatory experience was jinn-possession or madness traced through chains

MethodologyUsing the parable of the garden as a complete narrative interpretation through Companion chainsNarrative chain methodAl-Ṭabarī traces the garden parable through chains from Ibn ʿAbbās on both the historical referent and the moral lesson

Key Themes from Al-Ṭabarī

The pen oath (68:1) "By the pen and what they write" is analyzed through chains from Ibn ʿAbbās: the "qalam" (pen) is the first pen that Allah created and commanded to write the divine decree of all things that would happen until the Day of Judgment. This makes the divine oath by the pen an oath by the instrument of divine foreknowledge and destiny. Al-Ṭabarī connects this to the prophetic narration: "The first thing Allah created was the pen, and He said: Write. It wrote all that was and all that will be."

The garden parable (68:17–33) is analyzed through chains from Ibn ʿAbbās as describing a real historical event a garden near Ṣanʿāʾ in Yemen whose righteous owners bequeathed it with the intent to share harvest with the poor, but whose sons decided to prevent the poor from receiving their share, planned a secret harvest at dawn before the poor arrived, and found the garden destroyed. Al-Ṭabarī traces the chain and treats this as a real historical lesson embedded in the Quran as a parable of consequences.

نٓ ۚ وَالْقَلَمِ وَمَا يَسْطُرُونَ Nūn wa-l-qalami wa-mā yasṭurūn "Nun. By the pen and what they write." (68:1) Al-Ṭabarī presents chains from Ibn ʿAbbās identifying the pen as the divine pen of destiny, and presents competing views on "Nūn" a fish, an ink-pot, or a letter of unknown meaning before suspending judgment on the letter.

وَإِنَّكَ لَعَلَىٰ خُلُقٍ عَظِيمٍ Wa-innaka la-ʿalā khuluqin ʿaẓīm "And indeed, you are of a great moral character." (68:4) Al-Ṭabarī traces chains from ʿĀʾishah: when asked about the Prophet's character she said "his character was the Quran" making this verse the Quranic endorsement of the Prophet's character as embodied Quranic ethics.

Pen of destiny: Al-Ṭabarī's chain-based identification of the pen as the pen of divine foreknowledge connects the surah oath to the broader Islamic doctrine of divine decree (qadar).
Prophetic character: 68:4's endorsement of the Prophet's character, read through the ʿĀʾishah chain ("his character was the Quran"), establishes the Prophet as the living embodiment of Quranic ethics.
Garden historicity: Al-Ṭabarī treats the garden parable as a real historical event not a fictional illustration consistent with his approach to Quranic narratives.
Nūn suspension: Like other isolated letters, al-Ṭabarī presents competing views for "Nūn" but ultimately suspends judgment one of his more detailed muqaṭṭaʿāt discussions.
Accusation chains: The madness accusation (68:2–5) is traced through chains to specific Quraysh leaders who made it al-Ṭabarī grounds the refutation in documented history.

Surah Overview

Key Themes from Al-Ṭabarī

Finished this lesson?