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Maat

Maat is an ancient Egyptian spiritual and ethical concept with multiple meanings. Its etymology suggests its evolution from the physical concept of straightness, correctness, levelness, and rightness. In its most basic conception, Maat is “the right” or “rightness,” but Maat also connotes the expansive range of meaning indicated in its various forms: rights, rightful, rightfulness, upright, uprightness, righteous, righteousness. The ancient Egyptians saw Maat as a divine power called into being at the beginning of creation by the creator, Ra. Maat, then, is a principle and power constitutive of creation itself. This is expressed as a divine order of rightness that permeates existence and gives life to all living things. Maat requires and demonstrates this order of rightness in the divine, natural, and social realms. Thus in the practice of Maat, practioners seek to have and maintain right relations with the divine, nature, and other humans.

An Ethical System

Maat is also a way of rightness, a moral and spiritual ideal by which people organize and live their lives. The ancient Egyptian phrase for this is w3t n M3át or Wat en Maat, meaning “the Way of Maat.” In the Sebait (“instructions”) of Ptahhotep in the sacred text called the Husia, Maat is described thus: “Maat is great, enduring, effective. And it has not been displaced since the time of its Creator. It is a way even for the unlearned, and those who violate its laws are punished though the covetous person overlooks this. Although baseness may seize wealth, wrongdoing never lands is wares [at a safe port]. In the end it is Maat that endures and enables one to say it is the ground of my father [and mother].” In the Husia, many speak of Maat. Dua-Khety says of Maat, “Behold I have placed you on the way of God.” King Horemheb says, “I have directed them to the way of life. I have led them to Maat.” Lady Tahabet says, “Come, I will guide you on the way of Maat, the good route of one who follows God.” And the Seba Akhtoy says, “I spread out my instructions before you. I bear witness to you concerning the way of life [Maat]. I set before you a path that is painless. A palisade which protects against the crocodile. A good and pleasant life, a shade without heat.”

Maat, as an ethics and way of life, is the practice of rightness in thought, emotion, speech, and conduct. The Way of Maat is defined especially by the Seven Cardinal Virtues of Maat: truth, justice, propriety, harmony, balance, reciprocity, and order. In this context, the individual develops into the geru maa, the truly self-mastered person who speaks truth, does justice, acts appropriately, and is in harmony, balanced, and reciprocal and whose life is in order (i.e., disciplined and thus characterized by a rightfully expected regularity of doing good).

A Revived Tradition

Since the 1980s, Maat has become a revived ethical and spiritual tradition for many Africans in the diasporia and on the continent. Acting on Cheikh Anta Diop's call to recover and reconstruct ancient Egyptian culture and use it to enrich and expand African life, many have embraced Maat as principle and practice for achieving this. In his major work on the subject, Maat, the Moral Ideal in Ancient Egypt: A Study in Classical African Ethics (2004), Maulana Karenga discusses the evolution and essential tenets of this ancient and renewed tradition. Furthermore, he has translated and edited ancient Egyptian sacred texts and compiled them in a sacred text called The Husia: Sacred Wisdom of Ancient Egypt. The text takes its name from the ancient Egyptian for the two divine powers by which the creator conceived and called the world into being. They are Hu—“authoritative utterance” and Sia—“exceptional insight.” Thus, the name Husia means “authoritative utterance of exceptional insight.” For in the creation process, Ra conceives the world in his heart-mind and calls it into being with the word. In the renewed Maatian tradition, the name reaffirms the authoritative, deeply insightful, and sacred character of the text.

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