Promising Resurrection, the Quran says: “...You shall be created again just as
He has created you now…(7:29) and the event is promised to be such that: “As soon as He summons you out of the earth, you shall come out at one call.” (30:25). The Quran notes that Resurrection has to happen as the toil of life endured on earth must entail reprisal or reward. Hence, therefore: “We have fastened the augury (omen: a portent of good or evil) of every man to his own neck, and on the Day of Resurrection We will bring forth a writing which he will find like an open book. ‘Here is your record: read it. Today you yourself suffice as reckoner against yourself.’” (17:13-14)
The book mentioned above is indeed curtailed in the dynamic human genome which is multifaceted in the sense that memories of behaviours get chemically scribed in it and actively retained for retreival. Cells not only carry the blueprint of an organism's essential makeup but have memory stores of never-learned traits, with which we can innately step into life as infants, without having ever encountered sensory experience. But that is not all! Our cells are genetically programmed to document and retain a readable account of our daily behaviours and their processes also, down to the minutest of details.
The evidence of genetic memory is also projected in people born with exceptional faculties and intrinsic ingress to arts, mathematics or cosmology. Without ever learning the rules formally, they’re driven solely by innate memories. The intense aptitudes, exhibited by geniuses, highlight the fact that the common cognitive brain circuit exists parallel to other innate sensors by “default.” Alonzo Clemons, for instance, could sculpt any creature with perfect bone and muscle detail after just a single glimpse of the subject, from a very young age - without formal training. Likewise, musical maestros: Tom Wiggins and Leslie Lemke - a century after him - demonstrated perfect knowledge of the expansive lingo of music, right from infancy - without traditional learning!
It appears that some people come with a factory-lodged chip to tune brilliance in a pre-determined field of performance. There must be a system that equips people with complex abilities, insights and intuitions that they have never learned through conscious effort of the brain. In summary, it would be true to conclude that the human organism is embodied with an ongoing, unpreventable, and irreversibly vigorous mechanism that carries genetic transmission of habits and past history, well beyond known parameters. Undoubtedly therefore, the history of one’s life-events can always be available as a chemical script - independent of the individual’s brain-organ-memory.
The divine scriptures mention not only an original Book of Records but also warn of an ongoing recording system. The Quran (54:53) narrates: “Whatever they have done is recorded in registers and everything, small or great, is written therein.” An answer to man’s wonderment over resurrection, notes: “We know very well whatever the earth consumes of their bodies, and We have a Book which preserves everything.” (50:4) The Lord warns: “We have created man and know every evil suggestion that arises in his heart: We are even closer to him than his neck-vein. Two scribes, sitting on his right and left, are recording everything. He utters not a word but there is an ever ready observer to note it down. (50:16-18)
In molecular science, genetic memory resides in the genetic material of the cell. It is expressed through the genetic code that translates it into proteins. The genetic code allows cells to register information for structuring the protein molecules that make up living cells. They store the blueprint of species, which is transferable from cell to cell and thus hereditary. However, genes also have a somatic memory which is limited only to the organism. Our immune system is an example of this type. It learns to recognize pathogens and the somatic genetic memory retains the learning process, making the effects of vaccinations long lasting but not passable as hereditary.
The brain as a tool of cognizance guides our interaction with the external world. The brain stores perceived experiences whereas it is the cell that is genetically programmed to register our behaviours! Cells employ epigenetic processes to document and store retrievable data, creating a casebook of developments within the organism. These dossiers are expressed by chemically scribed changes in the chromatin structure. Scientists use this to study the pathology of diseases and criminal behaviours. Once man is resurrected as original, the body will come alive with a chemical script of past behaviours ingrained in its cells.
“And when it was said, ‘...There is no doubt about the coming of Resurrection,’ you used to say, ‘We do not know what Resurrection is: we only guess: we are not certain.’ The evils of their deeds then will become manifest to them…” (45:32-33)
“...Their ears and their eyes and their very skins will bear witness against them concerning what they had been doing in this world. They will say to their skins. ‘Why have you borne witness against us?’ They will reply, ‘The same God Who has given speech to everything has given us speech…’ You never thought your ears and your own eyes and your own skins would ever bear witness against you.” (41:20-22)
Here it is worth mentioning that past-life-regression of the Hindu belief of reincarnation cannot be associated with the genetic encoding of life-experiences. The so called ‘reincarnated’ subjects have no genetic link with the individuals, to whose lives they claim to have regressed. The so-called reincarnated subject is ‘reborn’ from different parents and is genetically unlike the person they claim to embody. Their brain used to recall past life has no genetic connection with the former being. Besides, psychological memory is associated with central nervous memory and is not the same as genetic memory. The two differ because brain memory is more about interaction with consciousness and decision-taking, whereas the genetic memory records chemical changes triggered in the cells, in reaction to the choices we make and the behaviours we adapt.
Our genes, therefore, are memory-disks of recoverable information, designed to aid resurrection - complete with an unchangeable read-only record of personal conduct. Raising from the dead means restoration of the previous and hence, every individual's memory-file holds a self-scribed, ready verdict of their final adjudication. There is caution in informing: “Surely the records of the wicked are in the Prison Register and what do you know what the Prison Register is? It is a written book…” (83:7) and : “Surely the records of the righteous are in the Registerm… It is a written book, guarded by the angels nearest to Allah.” (83:18)
The Quran repeatedly draws our attention to the fact that: “...Everything in the heavens and the earth…has been recorded in a Book;” (22:70) noting: “He knows all that is in the land and in the sea; there is not a leaf that falls from a tree but He knows about it; there is not a grain in the darkest bowels of the earth of which He is not aware; everything fresh and dry has been recorded in an open Book.”(36:79) So the inquiry that how Resurrection could be possible from the annihilated and long gone is answered saying, “...Not an atom's weight of anything is hidden from Him, neither in the heavens nor in the earth, nor anything smaller than an atom nor greater than it: everything is recorded in a clear register.” (34:3)
The Quran questions the wisdom of the unbelievers saying: “Do they not see that God Who created the heavens and the earth and was not weary by their creation, has surely the power to raise the dead to life! Why not! Surely He has power over everything.”