بَلىٰ قادِرينَ عَلىٰ أَن نُسَوِّيَ بَنانَهُ
Yes indeed, We are able to proportion [even] his fingertips!
EXEGESIS
Nusawwiya (proportion) is derived from sawiya, meaning to be equal and balanced. Its verbal noun taswiyah means to proportion and give shape. Its usage implies that God will not only recreate man, but will correctly proportion even the finest details as they were.
Banān (fingertips) is the plural of banānah, and refers to the fingers and can include the toes. Others have said it means the fingertips, though these are not necessarily in contradiction as the fingertips are included in the fingers.
EXPOSITION
God replies to those who doubt His ability to bring back to life dead bones, by declaring that not only can He do that, He will perfectly put together even the finest and most detailed small bones and joints in a person’s hands. The hands are specified because hands, and especially the dextrous fingers that man possesses, are a rare quality amongst living organisms, and they allow him to manipulate fine things with accuracy, engaging in tasks such as writing, and other things, that play a very important part in his ability to progress. Human life as we know it would be unimaginable if we did not possess hands and fingers. The purposeful use of the verb nusawwiya, which implies proportioning and structuring in a harmonious and balanced way, emphasises the delicate and precise role that fingers play in human life.
As the classical exegetes have pointed out, if God had willed, He could have given man paws or hoofs like other animals, and he would be forced to take things with his mouth like other animals, yet God blessed him with hands and fingers.
Modern exegetes have also paused to consider another quality of fingers, namely the fingertips. These finely detailed ridges provide grip and play a crucial role in a person’s ability to grab and hold on to things, as well as being extremely sensitive, being able to detect and sense even microscopically small things. They also act as unique identifiers of a person, with no two people sharing the same fingerprints. Until today, two people with identical fingerprints have never been discovered, and research has shown that even genetically identical twins have unique fingerprints.
Certainly, the ability to create (and then recreate) even something as finely detailed as the fingers, with their fine joints and minute fingerprints, is a testament to the power of God. At the same time, we also know that the human body that is recreated on the Day of Judgement will be qualitatively different in many aspects; most importantly, it will not age or die. How this is possible, we do not yet know.
Just like everything man touches leaves behind a trace – his unique fingerprint – so too will every action that he performs leave an imprint on his soul; Indeed it is We who revive the dead and write what they have sent ahead and their effects (āthārahum) (36:12). In addition to having the capability of completely recreating man’s physical body, God will also reinvigorate the human soul, with all its memories kept in store, with all the actions that have been imprinted on it intact. This arguably is an even greater task; yet everything is easy for God.
REVIEW OF TAFSĪR LITERATURE
Qurṭubī has asserted that the fingerbones are the smallest bones in the body, although it has been later discovered that the bones inside the ear are the smallest. Even so, the example struck in the verse is clear: God is able to reconstruct even the most delicate bones of the body.
[1] Raghib, pp. 439-440.
[2] Raghib, p. 147, b-n-n.
[3] Tabari, 29/110.
[4] Mizan, 20/104.
[5] Related from Ibn Abbas and Qatādah (Tibyan, 10/191; Tabari, 29/110). Some exegetes have understood the verb nusawwiya not to mean proportioning, but to make equal and uniform (taswiyah), arguing that this is what the verse (and the statement of Ibn Abbas and Qatādah) means; but that is not a good understanding of the verb here. Similarly, some exegetes have understood the statement of Ibn Abbas and Qatādah to mean that if God willed, He could resurrect man with hoofs, but this does not seem to be the intended meaning of their statement; nor can the verse be understood in this way either.
[6] https://sites.rutgers.edu/fingerprinting/no-two-finger-prints-are-alike/.
[7] Xunqiang Tao et al, “Fingerprint Recognition with Identical Twin Fingerprints”, in PLOS ONE, 7(4) (2012): e35704. Accessed at: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0035704. See also Anil K. Jain, Salil Prabhakar, Sharath Pankanti, “On the similarity of identical twin fingerprints”, in Pattern Recognition, Vol. 35, Issue 11, (2002), pp. 2653-2663. Accessed at: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0031-3203(01)00218-7.
[8] See for example Qurtubi, 19/94.