Universe Creation, Searching for God in Pharaonic Egypt..“Part I”

When, by whom and how the universe was first created? So many questions with no answers dogged the mind of ancient Egyptians.

These questions were a crucial and integral part of the religious thoughts of ancient Egyptians.

Before the emergence of pine religions, Egyptians had to put an end to this mystification through philosophical analysis and deep thinking.

Hussein Abdel Bassir, famous Egyptologist, stated that the successive civilizations managed to decipher the enigma of the creation process.

There were some inpidual attempts to interpret the origin of this beautiful and complicated world and the arrangement by which all creatures were created.

In the first place, the ancient Egyptian came up with 2 different possibilities: whether this wide universe was created by a great God who have unlimited power or it was just made by pure coincidence.

These results hadn’t been built on scientific theories but observing the daily facts and incidents used to take place in the ancient Egyptian environment.

Regarding the possibility of God’s existence, an infinite ability was more likely to be the main reason behind the surrounding creativity appearing in human beings and all other creatures existing everywhere. This superpower has no end, it never stops and it has a persistent pattern of innovation all the time.

According to ancient Egyptians, this creation power was a mixture of masculine and feminine natures; as both types are needed for the sake of mating and thus guaranteeing the life cycle’s regeneration and continuity.

“Ain Shams Doctrine”

They finally came to some theories and “Ain Shams Doctrine”was the most popular one.

Ain Shams Doctrine was also called “Heliopolis”; an area located at Cairo governorate right now and it was related to the holy city of the God of the sun at the past. This religious doctrine was the oldest one concerned with the universe creation dilemma.

Priests of the God of the sun embraced this doctrine by 2191-2687 B.C and they believed that nothingness was first existed before the emergence of the creator.

In this context, a pyramid text no. 1466 stated that “sky, earth, humanity, Gods and death have not yet been created”.

Amid this nothingness there was a hidden creation power represented in God “Atum” or “Non” who was living in the Nile river.

This river was called “eternal water” as its renewable water, the main source of life. Moreover, the river’s water had both positive and negative natures; the negative one is due to its neutral shape, color and taste while the positive one reflected its potential substance necessary for all creatures.

Back to God Non who created himself out of nothing and expressed himself in the amulet number 17 in the “Book of the Dead” by saying “I’m the great God who made himself by his own”.

“Non” had 2 opposite natures; the absolute existence and non-entity at the same time and Egyptians proved that “Non”, known later by Ra-Non or the God of the sun, was the origin and the only creator of all successive and perse creatures in the world.

Contributed by Salma Yassin