History Of Islam

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ss that he has not done anything to hurt
anyone. This shows responsibility because if the man did not tell the truth, he was responsible for not
entering the afterlife. Knowing that they would be responsible for their actions, the Egyptians tried not to
hurt people in their mortal lives.

The final value that all three cultures had in common was being truthful. All three cultures
relied heavily on the truth. In Hammurabi's laws, it says "If a man has borne false witness in a trial, or
has not established the statement that he has made, if that case be a capital trial, that man shall be put to
death." In other words "If you lie, you die." When Confucius examined himself every day, he asked the
question "have I been false with my friends?" In Egypt, it was important that a man be truthful when
brought before Osiris, because if they didn't tell the truth, they would be banished from the afterlife. One
of the lines of the Book of the Dead reads "I have not committed sin in the place of truth," which I read as
"I have not lied."

Each one of these three civilizations used different methods to enforce them. In Sumer,
Hammurabi's strict punishments kept people from disobeying them. On the other hand, Egypt didn't use
any kind of physical punishment, but they used threats. The people thought that if they went against the
values, Osiris, god of the afterlife, would punish them after their died. In China, the values weren't
enforced, but they were protected by the government. In the second century B.C., Confucianism became
the official philosophy of China, thus preserving it for the future.

I am greatly impressed by Hammurabi's ideas. His laws may sound harsh, but they had to be. In
ancient Sumer, you had to be harsh or people wouldn't even listen. I don't agree, however, with his double
standards. I feel that a life is worth just as much whether it's a patrician or a plebeian. I think that
Confucius'...