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
Fa-lammā qaḍaynā ʿalayhi'l-mawta mā dallahum ʿalā mawtihī illā dābbatu'l-arḍi taʾkulu minsaʾatah, fa-lammā kharra tabayyanati'l-jinnu an law kānū yaʿlamūna'l-ghayba mā labithū fi'l-ʿadhābi'l-muhīn
"When We decreed his death, nothing showed them his death but a creature of the earth eating his staff. When he fell, it became clear that the jinn did not know the unseen: had they known it, they would not have remained in that humiliating punishment."
A great many details are transmitted around this story: how long he stayed thus, when the worm gnawed the staff, what the jinn did. Per the method (Method) I do not go into these details; I do not add to the verse what is not in it.
The verse itself states a conclusion, and all the weight lies there: an law kānū yaʿlamūna'l-ghayba mā labithū fi'l-ʿadhābi'l-muhīn — "had they known the unseen, they would not have remained in that humiliating punishment."
| Step | Statement |
|---|---|
| Premise | The jinn went on working |
| Observation | Solomon had died |
| Conclusion | They did not know — that is, they do not know the unseen |
This is a piece of reasoning close to the pattern called modus tollens in logic: had they known, this would not have happened; this happened; therefore they did not know. The verse draws the inference itself, and builds it with the particle law (a condition that was not fulfilled).
And the place of this conclusion in the sūra must be recorded. The line of the unseen in the sūra runs thus:
| Verse | Expression | What it says |
|---|---|---|
| 3 | ʿĀlimi'l-ghayb | He is the one who knows the unseen |
| 14 | Law kānū yaʿlamūna'l-ghayb | The jinn do not know the unseen |
| 48 | ʿAllāmu'l-ghuyūb | The great knower of things unseen |
| 53 | Wa yaqdhifūna bi'l-ghaybi min makānin baʿīd | Throwing stones at the unseen from far off |
Four occurrences, in four separate places in the sūra. And the fourteenth verse holds a special place in this series: the one concrete piece of evidence is there. The third verse announced that the unseen is known; the fourteenth verse shows by an event by whom the unseen is not known.
I record this as my own reading, and its support is the verse's own last clause: the story is told not to describe Solomon's greatness but to show where knowledge of the unseen is not. And precisely for that reason it stands in the middle of the sūra's line of the unseen.
The sense of the root: to postpone, to delay; and to drive, to push. Nasaʾa — he postponed. And minsaʾa is on the mifʿala pattern: the instrument with which a work is done.
The lexicographers explain the word thus: the staff with which a shepherd drives his animals before him. That is, the staff is a tool used not for leaning on but for driving; and its name comes from that work.
I transmit this explanation as a relation the lexicographers have built; I do not present it as a settled etymological ruling.
And the choice of word is worth recording: the verse does not say ʿaṣā — that is the word that occurs in the stories of Moses (Mūsā). Here minsaʾa is used. That the word is different is a detail the lexicographers record; beyond that I frame no ruling about the meaning.
د-ب-ب — the concrete sense of the root is to move slowly and lightly, to stir upon the ground. The word was treated at al-Jāthiya 45/4 and at Fāṭir 35/45 (a moving living thing). I do not repeat it here.
The construction dābbatu'l-arḍ — "the creature of the earth". The sense the lexicographers commonly give is a wood-worm, a termite; the word has been understood so in this context.
This must not be confused with dābbatan mina'l-arḍ, which occurs elsewhere in the Qurʾān (al-Naml 27/82). The two constructions are different, and their contexts are different too; I do not read one through the other.
And the difference of scale the verse sets up is worth recording, and I give this as my own reading: for two verses the wind, molten metal, giant cauldrons and lofty structures were enumerated. Then that whole tableau comes to an end with a staff gnawed by a worm. The word order of the sentence stresses this: mā dallahum … illā dābbatu'l-arḍ — a negation plus an exception. That is, what gave the news was none of all the powers enumerated; it was only that.
فَلَمَّا خَرَّ — kharra: to collapse, to fall. The word is used in the Qurʾān for prostration as well (kharra sājidan). Here the fall itself is described, and the fall becomes the sign that will give the news.
ٱلْعَذَابِ ٱلْمُهِينِ — root ه-و-ن: lightness, worthlessness, being brought low. Muhīn — the active participle of Form IV: that which humiliates. That is, the quality of the punishment named here is not its severity but its power to degrade.