﴿ فَلَمَّا قَضَيْنَا عَلَيْهِ ٱلْمَوْتَ مَا دَلَّهُمْ عَلَىٰ مَوْتِهِۦٓ إِلَّا دَآبَّةُ ٱلْأَرْضِ تَأْكُلُ مِنسَأَتَهُۥ ۖ فَلَمَّا خَرَّ تَبَيَّنَتِ ٱلْجِنُّ أَن لَّوْ كَانُوا۟ يَعْلَمُونَ ٱلْغَيْبَ مَا لَبِثُوا۟ فِى ٱلْعَذَابِ ٱلْمُهِينِ ﴾

“Yet [even Solomon had to die; but] when We decreed that he should die, nothing showed them that he was dead except an earthworm that gnawed away his staff. And when he fell to the ground, those invisible beings [subservient to him] saw clearly that, had they but understood the reality which was be­yond the reach of their perception, they would not have continued [to toil] in the shameful suffering [of servitude]”

And when We decreed for him for Solomon death in other words when he died — he remained supported against his staff an entire year while the jinn continued to toil in hard labour as was customary unaware of his death until finally when a termite ate through his staff he fell to the ground and was seen to be dead — nothing indicated to them that he had died except a termite al-ard is the verbal noun from uridat al-khashaba passive verbal form in other words ‘it the piece of wood was eaten away by a termite al-arada’ that gnawed away at his staff read minsa’atahu or minsātahu replacing the hamza with an alif meaning a ‘staff’ so called because when describing it one would say yunsa’u bihā to mean it is used to repel or drive away creatures’. And when he fell down dead the jinn realised it became apparent to them that an is softened in other words annahum had they known the Unseen — comprising what was hidden from them in the way of Solomon being dead — they would not have continued in the humiliating chastisement in that hard labour of theirs in which they continued as they supposed him to be alive which is in contrast to what they would have supposed had they known the Unseen and the fact that he had been there an entire year judging by how much of the staff the termite had eaten through after his death; in other words they would not have continued in the humiliating chastisement for a single day or even a single night longer.