In 1823 - Jan Purkinje, a Czech physiologist and professor of anatomy at the University of Breslau, published a thesis discussing nine fingerprint patterns.
In 1858 – William Herschel, alluded to the fact that fingerprints are different from one person to another. This makes the fingerprint an exclusive characteristic of each person.
Juan Vucetich, an Argentine chief police officer, created the first method of recording the fingerprints of individuals on file, associating these fingerprints to the anthropometric system of Alphonse Bertillon, who had created, in 1879, a system to identify individuals by anthropometric photographs and associated quantitative descriptions.
Figure 13: Fingerprints taken by William Herschel in 1859/60
أَيَحْسَبُ الْإِنْسَانُ أَلَّنْ نَجْمَعَ عِظَامَهُ
بَلَىٰ قَادِرِينَ عَلَىٰ أَنْ نُسَوِّيَ بَنَانَهُ
“Does man think that We will not assemble his bones?
Yes. [We are] Able [even] to proportion his fingertips.” Qur’ān 75:3-4
The pagans of Makkah had denied that mankind would be raised on the Day of Resurrection. They wondered, ‘How is it possible for God to assemble the bones of the dead?’ God said that not only is He capable of assembling the bones of the dead but is also able to perfectly put together the tips of the fingers.
The question is why did God choose to use the body part ‘fingertips’ as an example of His ability in resurrecting.
A human being making the same point may have opted to say ‘proportion his face’ – for that would apparently seem to be of a greater difficulty and more visible differentiation – fingertips not being something you would traditionally associate with difficulty or uniqueness.
God knows the uniqueness He has placed in each human being. The verse stresses that every detail of man shall be brought back to life even to the extent of the information that exists on a fingertip. Only the Creator would have said these words in this way.
Leave a Comment