THE SECOND CHAPTER

"REINCARNATION AMONG THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS"

The most notable aspect of the ancient Egyptians' religion was the emphasis on the idea of survival after death. They arrived at this belief in the following way: as long as the Nile is able to live after its dormancy and the plant returns after its disappearance, then man must be able to return to life after his death.

The dryness of the land of Egypt aided in establishing this creed, as it helped the buried bodies remain without decomposition for a long period. They called the part that remains after death "the double" (Al-Qarinah); for the living body is permanently inhabited by a miniature image of it, which is the double or the Ka. Adjacent to it in the body is another being, which is the soul that resides within it. The Egyptian believed that the trinity of "the body, the double, and the soul" remains after the phenomenon of death.

The evidence for this is what was cited by the author of Al-Milal wa al-Nihal (Vol. 2, pp. 8-9). As for the afterlife, the Egyptians believed that man would live after death a life identical to the worldly life in all its conditions, without change in form; thus, the man, the woman, the elder, and the child remain in the afterlife as they were in the first life.