Isfet or Asfet (meaning "injustice", "chaos", or "violence"; as a verb, “to do evil”) is an ancient Egyptian term from Egyptian mythology used in philosophy, which was built on a religious, social and political affected dualism.
Principles and ideology
Isfet was thought to be the counterpart of the term Ma'at (meaning “(world-) order” or “harmony”). According to ancient Egyptian beliefs, Isfet and Ma'at built a complementary and also paradoxical dualism: one could not exist without its counterpart. Isfet and Ma'at balanced each other. An Egyptian king (pharaoh) was appointed to “achieve” Ma'at, which means that he had to keep and protect justice and harmony by destroying Isfet. The principles of the contrariness between Isfet and Ma'at are exemplified in a popular tale from the Middle Kingdom, called "the moaning of the Bedouin":
In the eyes of the Egyptians the world was always ambiguous; the actions and judgments of a king were thought to simplify these principles in order to keep Ma'at by separating order from chaos or good from evil. Coffin Text 335a asserts the necessity of the dead being cleansed of Isfet in order to be reborn in the Duat.