And when it was that the death of one who is of this description was perhaps distanced from the greatness of kingship by the influence of authority, the vastness of circumstances, and the multitude of soldiers, he indicated its ease by the proximity of its time and the swiftness of its occurrence in a manner that indicates the invalidity of their glorification of the jinn by informing them of the unseen after alerting them to such a thing by using the word: ﴿So when﴾ with the letter 'fa'. For this reason, he returned to the manifestation of majesty and said: ﴿We decreed﴾ and affirmed the attribute of power with the tool of elevation, saying: ﴿upon him﴾ meaning Solomon, blessings and peace be upon him, ﴿the death that did not inform them﴾ meaning his soldiers and all who were in his dominion from the jinn, humans, and others, from all near and far ﴿about his death﴾ because We made for him from the vastness of knowledge, the abundance of awe, and the influence of authority what enabled him to conceal his death from them ﴿except for a creature of the earth﴾. He magnified it with this addition, which implies that there is no creature of the earth other than it due to the knowledge it provided and because it, being one that eats from everything (p-470) from the parts of the earth, such as wood, stone, dust, clothing, and others, is most deserving of this name. It is made even more beautiful by the fact that the source of its action is 'earth' with a fathah and a sukūn, thus it becomes a kind of allusion that intensifies the desire to interpret it. Then he clarified that it is the termite by saying, resuming in response to one who might have asked: what creature is it and what did it indicate: ﴿It eats his staff﴾ meaning his staff on which he died while leaning upon it, standing in a house made of glass, and it had no door, which the jinn made for him because Allah informed him that his appointed time had come. And he had remained in the mosque a remnant to conceal his death from the jinn who were working in the sacred house until it was completed; he said in the dictionary in the section on hamzah: he delayed him: he drove him and pushed him away from the pond, and the 'minsa' is like a broom, and the hamzah is left out in both: the staff - because the creature is driven by it, meaning it is pushed along, and the substitute in it is necessary, as reported by Sibawayh. It has ended. The meaning is that the jinn were driven and pushed by it, and the two Madinians and Abu Amr read it with the substitution, and Ibn Amer from the narration of Ibn Dhakwan and the Dajouni from Hisham (p-471) with the hamzah being silent, while the others read it with an open hamzah. ﴿So when he fell﴾ meaning he fell to the ground after the termite broke his staff, ﴿the jinn became evident﴾ meaning they knew with a clear knowledge that they could not deny nor disguise, and their matter was exposed and became completely apparent ﴿that﴾ meaning that they ﴿if they had known﴾ meaning the jinn ﴿the unseen﴾ meaning its knowledge ﴿they would not have remained﴾ meaning they would not have stayed around for a year, ﴿in the humiliating punishment﴾ from that action in which they were subjugated, and the intended meaning is to invalidate what they claimed of knowledge of the unseen in the manner of description, for the meaning is that their claim to that is either a lie or ignorance, and the best state for them is that it be ignorance on their part. And it has now become clear to them their ignorance in a way they cannot deny, and it is possible that 'that' is a causal particle, and the estimation is: the condition of the jinn became clear regarding what is presumed of them that they know the unseen, for they until the end, and the reason for their knowledge of the duration of his being dead before that is that they placed the termite on a part of the staff, and it ate from it for a day and a night, and they calculated that duration and found it to be a year. And in this is a reprimand for the Arabs that they believe whoever confirms this matter that they do not know the unseen in the myths that come to them from the soothsayers and others that mislead them while they witness from it a great lie. Thus they were equal to those who inform from among humans about some of the unseen with a suspicion they think or a dream they see or otherwise, so it would be as he said. This is with (p-472) their turning away from whoever informs them about the Hereafter out of compassion for them and advice to them, and whatever he informed them of anything at all except that its truth appeared before his claim to prophethood and after it, and he showed them from the miracles what astonished the minds. And it has been established that everything that was confirmed for those before our Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, from the prophets regarding miracles, has been confirmed for him similarly or greater than it, either for himself or for one of his nation. And this that was mentioned for Solomon, blessings and peace be upon him, regarding his preservation after his death for a year, has not been established for any person from this nation without anything to rely upon. The scholar Abu al-Qasim al-Qushayri said in his treatise in the section on the wilderness, standing [dead] with nothing to hold him.

And it has been established that a person like that is in the lands of Shirwan, near Shamakhi. The name of that saint is Muhammad, and his title is Damdamki. He died around four hundred years in the fifth century of the Hijrah. He is seated in a place of his station which was the Bistami. A witness from among the students of knowledge, who I do not suspect, informed me of this. This is a well-known and widely reported matter in their lands, rich in the absence of witnessing a specific person. He said: I visited him more than once, and he has a presence that prevents the believer from approaching him closely enough to see his face, as Allah, the Most High, indicated regarding something like that in His saying: 'If you had turned away from them, you would have been filled with fear from them' [Al-Kahf: 18]. He said: And there was with us at some times a person from the students of knowledge from the people of Kaylan who was not a believer, saying: This is merely a type of deception that is imagined upon the minds of the common folk. He said: So he boldly approached him, touched his chest, and looked at his face. He was immediately struck and did not return except being carried. He remained in the school in which he was engaged in the city of Shamakhi for a period. He informed us that Sheikh Damdamki said to him when he touched him: If you were not from the people of knowledge, you would have perished. And he is an old man with a light beard. He said: And I have repented to Allah, the Most High, and I have become one of the believers in what he is upon, that it is the truth. And I do not deny any of the miracles of the saints. The narrator said: And he has been buried three times, one of them by the order of Tamrilenk, and he rises sitting as he is now - and Allah is the Granter of success to what is right.