Surah 68
Al-Qalam
The Pen
القلم
Editorial study · not independently reviewed.
- 1Part absent
- 2From a layer
- 3Absent
- 4Part absent
- 5Part absent
- 6Absent
- 7Part absent
- 8From a layer
- 9From a layer
From a layerPart supplied, part absentAbsent
Name and conventional translation
Part absent
Arabic name
القلم
Source fact
Transliteration
Al-Qalam
Source fact
English name
The Pen
Source fact as Tanzil metadata gives it; Tanzil names no translator for it
Verse count and position
From a layer
Verses
52
Derived link
Words
300
Derived link whitespace-separated tokens of the Uthmani text, the rule the morphology layer uses
Position in the mushaf order
68 of 114
Source fact
Position in a revelation ordering
2 of 114
Revelation order as encoded by the Tanzil metadata · Tanzil publishes an "order" value for each surah and documents the field only as "revelation order". It does not name which ordering it encodes, cite a scholar, or reference an edition. We have therefore not established whose ordering this is, and we do not name one. The major orderings disagree about dozens of surahs, so naming the likeliest candidate would be a guess presented as a citation.
Source fact
Place of revelation, as Tanzil classifies it
Meccan
Source fact Tanzil's classification, carried without a named authority
Juzʾ
Within juzʾ 29
Source fact juzʾ start verses from the banked Tanzil metadata file, digest-checked against its source record
Opening formula (basmala) in this edition
stands before verse 1 and is not numbered
Derived link
What the surah says of itself
Absent
Major movements and sections
Part absent
Rukūʿ divisions
| Rukūʿ | Verses | Opens |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 68:1-33 | نٓ وَٱلْقَلَمِ وَمَا يَسْطُرُونَ |
| 2 | 68:34-52 | إِنَّ لِلْمُتَّقِينَ عِندَ رَبِّهِمْ … |
Source fact rukūʿ start verses from the banked Tanzil metadata file, digest-checked against its source record; each runs to the verse before the next; opening words are the first 4 words of its first verse
Repeated words and themes
Part absent
Verses repeated word for word
No verse of this surah repeats another word for word.
Derived link verses of this surah whose Uthmani text is byte-identical to another verse of it
Phrases repeated word for word
No phrase qualifies under the rule below.
Derived link runs of at least 3 consecutive words, inside one verse, occurring at least 3 times in this surah, kept only where no longer run has the same occurrences; a run that is only ever a whole repeated verse is listed above instead
Roots carried by the most words
300 words108 with one root, counted26 conflicting roots53 no root recorded113 not analysed
| Root | Words, at least | Verses | Forms in this surah |
|---|---|---|---|
| ل.ك.م | 5 | 4 | لَكُمْ |
| ع.ل.م | 4 | 3 | أَعْلَمُ يَعْلَمُونَ |
| ج.ن.ن | 3 | 3 | بِمَجْنُونٍ جَنَّٰتِ لَمَجْنُونٌ |
| ح.ك.م | 3 | 3 | تَحْكُمُونَ لِحُكْمِ |
| ر.ب.ب | 3 | 3 | رَبِّكَ رَبَّكَ |
| ق.و.ل | 3 | 3 | قَالَ وَيَقُولُونَ |
| ن.ع.م | 3 | 3 | بِنِعْمَةِ نِعْمَةٌ ٱلنَّعِيمِ |
| و.ه.م | 3 | 3 | وَهُمْ |
| د.ع.و | 2 | 2 | وَيُدْعَوْنَ يُدْعَوْنَ |
| ذ.ك.ر | 2 | 2 | ذِكْرٌ ٱلذِّكْرَ |
| س.ب.ح | 2 | 2 | تُسَبِّحُونَ سُبْحَٰنَ |
| س.ج.د | 2 | 2 | ٱلسُّجُودِ |
10 more roots
| س.ط.ر | 2 | 2 | أَسَٰطِيرُ يَسْطُرُونَ |
| س.ل.م | 2 | 2 | سَٰلِمُونَ ٱلْمُسْلِمِينَ |
| ص.ح.ب | 2 | 2 | أَصْحَٰبَ كَصَاحِبِ |
| ص.ر.م | 2 | 2 | صَٰرِمِينَ لَيَصْرِمُنَّهَا |
| ط.و.ع | 2 | 2 | تُطِعْ يَسْتَطِيعُونَ |
| ك.ت.ب | 2 | 2 | كِتَٰبٌ يَكْتُبُونَ |
| ك.ي.د | 2 | 2 | كَيْدِى يَكَادُ |
| ل.ه.م | 2 | 2 | لَهُمْ |
| ي.و.م | 2 | 2 | يَوْمَ يَوْمِ |
| ب.ص.ر | 2 | 1 | فَسَتُبْصِرُ وَيُبْصِرُونَ |
Derived link a word counts toward a root only where every analysis Camel Morph kept for it names that one root and no analysis records none; words with no analysis, no root or conflicting roots are not counted anywhere. Roots on at least 2 words.
Not supplied
Words the analyser did not read
113 of this surah's 300 words have no analysis, and a further 79 have no single root, so the root counts are minimums. Camel Morph MSA is a Modern Standard Arabic analyser meeting Qur'anic Arabic.
People and events named
Absent
Common claims the text does not itself establish
Part absent
Provisional stand-in: studies tagged a common misconception that cite this surah
Derived link every current study that carries the common-misconception tag and cites a verse of this surah. That tag is a discovery aid, not a mark that the text does not establish the claim — that mark does not exist yet — so this list is provisional and not a complete account of the claims the text does not establish. The question is quoted; the answer is on the study.
Links to related topical studies
From a layer
Current studies citing a verse of this surah
9 current studies
Muhammad in the Qur'an2
Character & relationships1
God & divine attributes1
Knowledge, reason & reflection1
Other faiths & interreligious relations1
Prophets & messengers1
Supplications & remembrance1
The Qur'an about itself1
Derived link every study whose current signature cites at least one verse of this surah, grouped by its /studies theme (largest first, ties by name, no theme last) and ordered by first verse cited. A citation is not a statement that the study is about this surah.
Source and review status
From a layer
Sources this page draws on
| Source | Licence | Attribution notice |
|---|---|---|
| Tanzil Qur'an text (Uthmani) Uthmani, Version 1.1 · cleared | Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 | Qur'anic text from the Tanzil Project. Copyright (C) 2007-2026 Tanzil Project License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Source: tanzil.net · Updates: tanzil.net/updates/ https://tanzil.net/updates/ |
| Tanzil Qur'an metadata quran-data.xml v1.0 · cleared | Creative Commons Attribution — version not specified by the source | Surah metadata from Tanzil Qur'an metadata (quran-data.xml, version 1.0), Tanzil Project, tanzil.net. (C) 2008-2009 Tanzil.info. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution; the source does not state a version. Values are reproduced unchanged; this site selects and arranges them, and derives verse ranges from the division start points. https://tanzil.net/res/text/metadata/quran-data.xml |
| Camel Morph MSA v1.0, LREC-COLING 2024 release · cleared | Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International | Morphological analyses from Camel Morph MSA (LREC-COLING 2024 release) by Christian Khairallah, Salam Khalifa, Reham Marzouk, Mayar Mohamadein Nassar and Nizar Habash, CAMeL Lab, New York University Abu Dhabi (Khairallah et al., 2024), https://github.com/CAMeL-Lab/camel_morph. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Modified: this site runs the analyser over its Qur'anic text, keeps only analyses whose vocalisation matches the text, removes duplicates and counts the result. https://github.com/CAMeL-Lab/camel_morph |
Source fact
Verse restatements signed for this surah
0
Derived link
Signed introduction to this surah
Fifty-two verses opening on the pen and what they inscribe, sworn by in answer to the charge of madness. Then the owners of a garden who agreed to harvest at first light and not let a poor person in, and said nothing about God willing it, and found the place in the morning as though it had been reaped in the night. It opens with a disconnected letter.
AALAMIN Editor · signed 2026-08-29 · Editorial
Editorial