How Faith Shaped World Civilization and Culture
By Dewan Mukto
2026-02-09
When observing the aftermaths of the founding of ancient civilizations, great and small, one central idea has been seen to circulate among majority of the well-known glimpses of early human existence within the so-called civilizations themselves: religious myths, divine kingship and a mandate of Heaven. From the stretches of the Nile and ancient Egypt, across the citadels spanned by Ur and Sumer in Mesopotamia to the reaches of the Far East touched by China, we shall place a lens upon the maps of history to investigate exactly what connects them together such that they decided to adopt a kind of common system of stories and cultures that emphasized their origins and governments.
Firstly, in the works by Black (2016) and Abulhab (2020) we find that the three sources of civilization all had a structure of shared stories and beliefs among their societies. This had been an attempt to provide a sense of legitimacy and authenticity for whether those stories and beliefs were actually true or not. Essentially, it was everyone’s common knowledge naturally so that the people are going to assume that they must be true (Black, 2016). Monarchs and rulers of early pockets of human mass settlements adopted this strategy to allow them to assert their own dominance over people they do not personally know by claiming a type of sacred relation with the divine entities their mythologies made them believe in. This linking with unseen and commonly worshipped deities with the ruler’s power provided a kind of rightful claim to actually have the privilege to rule over their subjects. Since the populace already believed in those folktales and lore, the pharaohs of Egypt could tap into the potential of inserting themselves among the lines of sacred traditions and the world history that the citizens faithfully claimed to be true (Black, 2016). In Egypt, the supreme leader, the pharaoh, even went as far as convincing all his subjects that he was the descendant of their god Horus and was a representative of their god Osiris on Earth and that he must be in control of all power to maintain Ma’at, order and justice, and keep disorder at bay (Wilson, n.d.). After the pharaoh’s death, he was considered to be continuing life in the afterlife, reuniting with the family of their gods. Moreoever, the Egyptian mythology reveals that several natural phenomena were attributed to their deities, too. The common people thought that the natural cycles of the sun and tides were being maintained peacefully all because of their king faithfully performing all the rites needed to please the supernatural godly beings (Black, 2016; Wilson, n.d.).
Moving on farther towards the direction of where the sands of Africa and Asia meet, in the ancient time-space frame of Sumer, a similar concept lingered in the air. The people blindly followed whatever decree their rulers proposed, in the hopes that they would not want to go against authority promised or granted to them by divine sources (Eliade, 1981). The Sumerian king noted that his kingship was indeed “lowered from the heavens” since the beginning of time. That it was manifest destiny for them to be in their rightful position as they were now. Certainly, religion played a major role in the functioning of the society since their geopolitical structure was arranged in a specific way to focus on a particular god/goddess. As if the states were estates belonging to a deity, and their king was the ‘estate manager’ (ensi), entrusted with the role of supervising the land and its occupants, upholding justice and order properly (Black, 2016). Surprisingly, even the transfer of power from one king to another was explainable via religious fables — such as the instance when it was Hammurabi’s turn on the throne, the event was synchronous and correlated with the gods Anum and Elil handing over their primary godly duties to Marduk (the god of Babylon) who was the god responsible for nominating Hammurabi as the new ruler. Thus, it can already be evident that every time a king claimed power, every time a king announced a change, their gods and mythology seemed to favor them (Willis, 1996).
Retracing our steps to the direction where the sun rises from, China looms with the remnants of a chaotic battlefield of dynasties and states grappling at each other’s necks floating around in the air. Turning back the clock, back to an era where Chinese civilizations were just emerging, there was a pivotal idea bridging mythology and kingship. Such was the case of Tian Ming, the Mandate of Heaven. Black (2016) sheds a spotlight about when the Shang dynasty overtook the chance to gain sovereignty over their states, it was considered to be a sacred monarchy, with the king being from a lineage of mankind known to be the ‘center of the cosmos’. It was believed that the state was indistinguishable from the king and his royal ancestry, thereby the king was essentially an emperor who proclaimed himself to be the forsaken “Son of Heaven”, an ideal figure who is believed to be the best candidate for ever being a ruler (Black, 2016). At the same time, the mandate was slightly flawed, because it could be manipulated to justify any rises and falls of dynasties. Furthermore, the mandate could be treated as an ‘opportunity’ granted to the emperor at the time; if he was not virtuous enough or for oppressive attitudes shown to his subjects, there was a probability that he might lose the mandate (and therefore, lose his throne) and this could result in natural disasters and rifts in the cosmic skies. For China, political power ran in parallel to the order of the universe itself (Black, 2016; Eliade, 1981).
Since we are already here discussing about China, it would be wise to also debate upon whether Confucian (founded by Confucius) values were stronger than Legalism (founded by Han Feizi). I would personally be obliged to disagree with the aforementioned statement, due to the sheer success of the Qin dynasty that was apparently fueled by Legalism at its core. No other dynasty of China at that time had managed to reach the extents of expanding the influence upon a land area so massive (Black, 2016, p. 104). Surely, this must mean that Legalism managed to stand out as the champion from among the ‘hundred schools of thought’ since none of the other philosophies could prove to be as effective in terms of political expansion or governance. Legalists and Confucianists would be at conflict with each other due to cardinal opposites of their opinions; legalists assumed that humans had an innate desire to follow their own self-interest, regardless of right or wrong — strict laws (fa) and regulations are necessary for ensuring peace and welfare for society (Black, 2016, pp. 103–105). For indeed, even in modern times, there is a logical correlation seen between the severity of fines and punishments and the level of obedience that people in a nation have for their laws are proportional to the amount of social safety and security that can prevail by my own personal experiences, e.g. Singapore, Canada, Dubai, in modern times. To prevent the oppression, it is necessary to choose the standalone philosophy that promises long-term survival in almost any situation. Rather than staying grounded by traditions, “as the conditions in the world change, different principles are practiced” (Black, 2016, p. 106). In contrast, Confucian ideologies are too idealistic and may not always be possible in reality, such as the expectation that “if you desire the good, the people will be good. The virtue of the gentleman is the wind; the virtue of the people is the grass” (Black, 2016, p. 93) which would not hold true for people with a lot of malice in their minds.
In a nutshell, hence, it can be concluded that early civilizations relied on the instrument of lore, language and law to help the rulers of masses devise plans for the utilitarianism of their empires and civics. Nevertheless, the Chinese philosophers also played such key roles in shaping eastern philosophy that their works are still read today along those lines.
References
Abulhab, S. D. (2020). Adam and the early Mesopotamian creation mythology. In Lost in translation, presumption, and interpretation: Adam, Noah, and the ancient Mesopotamian mythology of the creation and the flood. CUNY Academic Works.
Black, A. (2016). A world history of ancient political thought: Its significance and consequences. Oxford University Press.
Eliade, M. (1981). A history of religious ideas (W. R. Trask, Trans.). The University of Chicago Press.
Willis, R. (Ed.). (1996). World mythology: The illustrated guide. Duncan Baird Publishers.
Wilson, J. A. (Trans.). (n.d.). Egyptian myths and tales. Princeton University Press. https://assets.press.princeton.edu/chapters/s9293.pdf