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“Teaching and learning have two fundamental purposes: to cultivate the Maatian person and create and sustain the Maatian community. The process is a dialectical one in which a good society cultivates the good person and the good person creates and sustains the good society. In this regard, Maatian anthropology posits a paradigmatic person-the grw mꜣꜥ or geru-maa, the truly self-mastered, ‘whose whole character is infsed with Maat’ (Morenz 1984, 118). The word is composed of “geru,” which means silent, self-mastered, self-controlled, and of “maa” (truly, righteous) and thus means the truly self-mastered or the righteous self-mastered person. Budge (1924, 98) makes the mistake of translating it as “the man who is truly resigned to god’s guiding hand” and equates it with ‘submission’ as the cardinal virtue in Islam. For it is not submissiveness which is a virtue here, but self-mastery in thought and practice.”
-Maulana Karenga, Maat: The Moral Ideal in Ancient Egypt
