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The Identity in the Fingerprint
While it is stated in the Qur’an that it is easy for God to bring man back to life after death, peoples’ fingerprints are particularly emphasized:
“Does man think that We cannot assemble his bones? Yes, We are able to put together in perfect order the very tips of his fingers” [Surat al-Qiyama 75: 3-4]
The emphasis on fingerprints has a very special meaning. This is because everyone’s fingerprint is unique to himself. Every person who is alive or who has ever lived in this world has a set of unique fingerprints.
That is why fingerprints are accepted as a very important proof of identity, exclusive to their owner, and are used for this purpose around the world.
As illustrated here, the fingerprint which is unique to each person, derives from the same structure in all people.
But what is important is that this feature of fingerprints was only discovered in the late 19th century. Before then, people regarded fingerprints as ordinary curves without any specific importance or meaning. However in the Qur’an, God points to the fingertips, which did not attract anyone’s attention at that time, and calls our attention to their importance-an importance that was only finally understood in our day.
Unbelievers argue regarding resurrection taking place after bones of dead people have disintegrated in the earth and how each individual would be identified on the Day of Judgment. Almighty Allah answers that He can not only assemble our bones but can also reconstruct perfectly our very fingertips. Why does the Qur’an, while speaking about determination of the identity of the individual, speak specifically about fingertips? In 1880, fingerprinting became the scientific method of identification, after research done by Sir Francis Golt. No two persons in the world can ever have exactly the same fingerprint pattern, not even identical twins. That is the reason why police forces worldwide use fingerprints to identify criminals. Fourteen hundred years ago, who could have known the uniqueness of each human’s fingerprint? Surely it could have been none other than the Creator Himself!
Pain Receptors in the Skin
It was thought that the sense of feeling and pain was dependent only on the brain. Recent discoveries however prove that there are pain receptors present in the skin, without which a person would not be able to feel pain. When a doctor examines a patient suffering from burn injuries, he verifies the degree of burns by a pinprick. If the patient feels pain, the doctor is happy, because it indicates that the burns are superficial and the pain receptors are intact. On the other hand, if the patient does not feel any pain, it indicates that it is a deep burn and the pain receptors have been destroyed. The Qur’an gives a clear indication of the existence of pain receptors in the following verse:
“Those who reject our signs, We shall soon cast into the Fire; as often as their skins are roasted through, We shall change them for fresh skins, that they may taste the Penalty: for Allah is Exalted in Power, Wise.” [Al-Qur’an 4:56]
Prof. Tagatat Tejasen, Chairman of the Department of Anatomy at Chiang Mai University in Thailand, has spent a great amount of time on research of pain receptors. Initially he could not believe that the Qur’an mentioned this scientific fact 1,400 years ago. He later verified the translation of this particular Qur’anic verse. Prof. Tejasen was so impressed by the scientific accuracy of the Qur’anic verse, that at the 8th Saudi Medical Conference held in Riyadh on the Scientific Signs of Qur’an and Sunnah, he proudly proclaimed in public: “There is no God but Allah and Muhammad (pbuh) is His Messenger.”
Allah knows the best
