It was recited: 'So when death was decreed upon him.' And the creature of the earth is the termite, which is the small creature that is called 'sarfah,' and the earth is its action, so it was attributed to it. It is said: 'The termite has eaten the wood,' when it has consumed it. And it was recited with the 'ra' opened, from 'the termite has eaten the wood,' and it is from the form of 'fa'ala' as in the saying: 'I ate the teeth of the nails,' so I ate an eating. And the 'minsa'ah' is the staff, because it is used to push away and delay. And it was recited with the 'm' opened and with the lightening of the hamzah by conversion and omission, and both are not by analogy, but the emergence of the hamzah in between is the standard lightening. And 'minsa'ah' is on the pattern of 'maf'alah,' as it is said in 'mayda'ah' as 'mayda'ah.' And 'from its end,' meaning: from the end of its stick, it was named by the 'sah' of the bow by metaphor. And there are two dialects in it, as in their saying: 'qahwah' and 'qahwah.' And it was recited: 'I ate from its 'minsa'ah,' the jinn became evident from 'tabayana' which means when something appears and becomes clear. And 'an' with its connection is a substitute for the jinn, a substitute of inclusion, as in saying: 'It became clear that Zayd is ignorant,' meaning: it became evident that the jinn, if they had known the unseen, they would not have remained in the punishment, or all the jinn knew knowledge that was clear - after the confusion of the matter upon the majority of them and their weakness and their assumption - that their leaders believed in their claim of knowledge of the unseen. Or the claimants of knowledge of the unseen among them knew their incapacity, and that they do not know the unseen even if they were previously aware of their condition, and it was intended to mock them as one mocks the claimant of falsehood when his argument is refuted and the refutation becomes evident by saying: 'Have you not realized that you are false?' And you know that it has always been thus evident. And it was recited: 'The jinn became evident,' in the passive form, on the basis that the evident in meaning is 'an' with what is in its connection, because it is a substitute. And in the reading of Abi: 'The humans became evident.' And from Al-Duhak: 'The humans became distinct,' meaning they recognized and became knowledgeable. And the pronoun in 'they were' refers to the jinn in the saying: 'And among the jinn are those who work before him,' meaning the humans knew that if the jinn were truthful in what they implied of their knowledge of the unseen, they would not have remained. And in the reading of Ibn Mas'ud, may Allah be pleased with him: 'The humans became evident that the jinn, if they had known the unseen.' It was narrated that it was the habit of Solomon, blessings and peace be upon him, to seclude himself in the Mosque of Al-Aqsa for long periods. So when his time approached, he would not wake up except to see in his prayer niche a tree that Allah had made to speak. He would ask it: 'For what reason are you?' It would say: 'For such and such,' until one day he saw the 'khurubah' (fig tree), and he asked it, and it said: 'It has grown for the destruction of this mosque.'

He said: Allah would not destroy it while I am alive. You are the one whose destruction and the ruin of Bayt al-Maqdis is upon your face. So he removed it and planted it in a wall of his, and said: O Allah, blind the dead among the jinn, so that the people may know that they do not know the unseen. This is because they used to eavesdrop and deceive the humans into thinking that they knew the unseen. And he said to the Angel of Death: When you are commanded regarding me, inform me. He said: You have been commanded, and there remains an hour of your life. So he called the devils, and they built for him a tower of glass that had no door. He stood praying, leaning on his staff, and his soul was taken while he was leaning on it. The devils would gather around his prayer niche wherever he prayed, and no devil would look at him in his prayer except that he would burn. A devil passed by him and did not hear his voice, then he returned and did not hear. He looked and saw that Solomon had fallen dead. They opened up to him, and behold, the staff had been eaten by the termite. They wanted to know the time of his death, so they placed the termite on the staff, and it ate from it in a day and a night a certain amount. They calculated in that manner and found that he had died a year ago. They were working in front of him and thought he was alive. The people realized that if they had known the unseen, they would not have remained in torment for a year. It is narrated that David, peace be upon him, established the construction of Bayt al-Maqdis in the location of the tent of Moses, peace be upon him, and he died before completing it. So he bequeathed it to Solomon, and he commanded the devils to complete it. When there remained a year of his life, he asked that they be made blind to his death until they finished it, to nullify their claim of knowledge of the unseen. It is narrated that Afridun came to ascend his throne, and when he drew near, the two lions struck his leg and broke it, so no one dared to approach him afterward. Solomon's age was fifty-three years: he ruled when he was thirteen years old, so he remained in his kingship for forty years, and he began the construction of Bayt al-Maqdis four years into his reign.