The Lords Beloved
Columns
Benson C Saili
THIS EARTH, MY BROTHER…
Her name was … Mary Magdalene!
In April 2003, Dan Brown, then a obscure, unknown writer, published a novel titled The Da Vinci Code. The central motif of the book’s fact-based storyline was that Jesus not only had a wife but had children too. The claim galvanised practically the entire globe and the book became a best seller overnight. It has since sold more than 81 million copies and ranks as the ninth best-selling book of all time.
Yet the assertion that Jesus was a wedded man did not originate with Dan Brown. The first such claim in the public domain was made by three researchers, Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln in their 1982 non-fiction book, The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. Their book was a best seller too but it was nowhere near the phenomenal success of The Da Vinci Code. Perhaps because of the dizzying success of the The Da Vinci Code, the authors of The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail unsuccessfully litigated against Brown for “appropriating the architecture of our book”.
In 1996, Laurence Gardner published a book titled Bloodline of the Holy Grail, which corroborated the thesis that Jesus did marry and had offspring. Gardner, who was granted privileged access to royal and suppressed archives while researching the book, went on to say that European monarchs had known of Jesus’s marital status since days immemorial and that some of these royal families were descended from the conjoined lines of Jesus and his immediate younger brother James.
The Da Vinci Code was widely denounced by Christendom as little more than the product of a fertile but warped imagination. The notion that Jesus, who is worshipped as God incarnate in Christendom, could have engaged in sexual relations with a mortal was anathema to Christians. The Vatican lambasted the book as replete with “shameful and unfounded lies”. The Pope even appointed an archbishop dedicated to debunking its contents. The irony of it all, though, was that the Bible itself does detail clear-cut evidence that Jesus was married and does contain coded evidence to the effect that he had kids.
The “Lord’s” spouse was Mary Magdalene.
Jesus had three children with her.
THE FIRST LADY
Mary is a recurring name in the gospels. There are three Mary’s mentioned in the New Testament. There is Mary the mother of Jesus; Mary Magdalene; and Mary “of Cleopas” (that is, the betrothed of James the brother of Jesus). The apocryphal Gospel of Phillip makes mention of yet another Mary. This was Jesus’s eldest sister.
Mary is also rendered as Mirriam (Mariam in Arabic) or Maria. According to the Lexicon of Jewish Names in Late Antiquity, Mary was the commonest name (80 percent) in gospel times followed by Salome (63 percent). The name’s popularity derived, first and foremost, from its Egyptian origins. All the wives of Egyptian rulers were Mary’s, or rather “Mery’s” in the language of the day. The name meant “Queen”, or “Beloved of”, what we commonly refer to as “First Lady” in respect of Republican governments.
For example, Meryaten meant “Beloved of Aten” (Aten being Nannar-Sin, Enlil-Jehovah’s second-born son), and Meryamon (over time abbreviated as “Mirriam”) meant “Beloved of Amon” (Amon being Marduk, Enki’s firstborn son, the origin of the “Amen” Christians innocently utter at the end of their prayers).
The popularity of the name Mary also stems from Mirriam, the half-sister-wife of Moses, who according to the book of Jasher (excluded from the Old Testament canon by deliberate design) was a renowned prophetess and was more popular than Moses, who had to resort to magic to earn the respect of the children of Israel (The Sixth and Seventh Book of Moses is the standard manual on advanced witchcraft). Thus Mary originally was not a name but a title. In Setswana, Mary would be rendered as Mohumagadi. Since we all want to give our children talismanic names, the title Mary became a typical household name.
In the House of David, that is, the dynastic family of Jesus, Mary was not a mere name: it was a titular distinction primarily. Mary was the title of the wife of the Davidic heir (e.g. Joseph, Jesus, and his younger brother James) and the firstborn daughter of the Davidic heir, that is, the first princess. It explains why Jesus’s mother was called Mary; his wife was called Mary; one of his sisters was called Mary; and James’s betrothed was also called Mary.
Scholars have puzzled as to why there were so many Mary’s in attendance at the scene of the crucifixion and have come up with all sorts of fanciful theories. Well, the simple answer is that all the Mary’s at Calvary were primarily titular names. The three Mary’s could have had their own particular names which are not recorded in the Bible or are recorded but in not that apparent a fashion. For example, we know that the given name of Mary the mother of Jesus was Tabitha – Dorcas in Greek. She became a Mary when she got engaged to the Davidic heir Joseph.
The non-canonical gospel of Phillip says, “There were three who always walked with the Lord: Mary his mother and her sister and Magdalene, the one who was called his companion. His sister and his mother and his companion were each a Mary.” This very statement, which posits that Jesus had a mistress, was enough to disqualify the gospel of Phillip from inclusion in the New Testament corpus at the Council of Nicaea.
What is the first obvious signal that Mary Magdalene was Jesus’s wife? There are seven occasions in the Bible where Jesus’s female companions are cited. On six of these, Mary Magdalene is listed first – a tacit metaphor for First Lady. Even in the seventh list (JOHN 19:25), she is only supplanted by Mary the Mother of Jesus (the reasons why this time around she is listed fourth instead of first we shall dwell upon in due course).
Mary Magdalene was the first person to speak to Jesus after the resurrection. The apocryphal texts describe her as, “The woman who knew the all of Jesus”; the one “Christ loved more than all of the disciples”; and the apostle “endowed with knowledge and insight far exceeding that of Peter”. If she’s at once spoken of in superlatives and presented as somebody who was closer to Jesus than anybody else, then surely Mary Magdalene had to be special. But first, exactly who was Mary Magdalene?
RELEASED FROM THE JUDAS TUTELAGE
In the 13th century, Jacapo di Voragine, the Archbishop of Genoa, wrote a book titled Life of Mary Magdalene from church records. The book furnishes a bit of insight on the lineage and parentage of Mary Magdalene.
According to Jacopo, Mary Magdalene’s father was Syro, which may not have been his real name as it seems to be too suspiciously close to “Syria”. Syro was a Jewish nobleman who was based in Syria. He was descended from Ira the Jairite, a chief priest of King David.
The Jairus priests originated with the Old Testament sons of Jair in the time of Moses. Syro’s wife, Eucharia, the mother of Mary Magdalene according to Jacopo, was a Hasmonean princess. However, as we shall find out next week, Syro was not the real father of Mary Magdalene and Eucharia was not her mother at all. Mary Magdalene was actually not a Jew but a Gentile.
Most Christians may not be aware of this but Mary Magdalene makes her first appearance in the gospels in MATTHEW 9: 18-25 as Jairus’s daughter who was “raised from the dead”. Now, there was no miracle about this event: Mary Magdalene did not die and was then restored to life. What she underwent was a simultaneous Bar Mitzvah ceremony and a baptism by Jesus to make her eligible for marriage to him.
She was therefore raised from figurative death (darkness) into the degree of community life (light). Jesus performed this rite on Mary Magdalene when she was 12 years old as the gospels relate, in AD 29. Since she had come of age, she was eligible for marriage and therefore was ripe for betrothal. Prior to this, she was not a Mary: but after her engagement to Jesus at age 12, she assumed the titular name of Mary and became entitled to all the privileges this title conferred.
The AD 29 joint baptismal and Bar Mitzvah ceremony also marked the event when “seven demons came out of Mary Magdalene” (LUKE 8:2). Once again, this has been misconstrued as Mary’s deliverance from seven literal evil spirits, which is unfortunate. All Mary’s, that is, future dynastic spouses for the Princes of Judah (that is, Jesus and his four younger brothers in gospel times) primarily or any other suitors from the nobility, were kept in a monastic convent at Qumran where they were supervised and watched over under strict regulations by the seven demon priests.
The seven demon priests, also called satans, were Zealots who were a symbolic opposition group to the seven civilian priests who were considered to represent the seven lights of the Menorah (the seven-branched candlestick of Jewish tradition).
Numbered 1 to 7 in ascending order, the seven demon priests were headed by the Chief Scribe, who was designated Demon No. 7. In gospel times, this was Judas Iscariot. When a Mary was spoken for and was about to get betrothed, she was released from the convent. This was figuratively referred to as “being delivered from seven demons”. Remember, in biblical times, the terms “Satan”, “Devil”, and “Demon” did not always carry the diabolical, Reptilian connotation they invariably do today.
WATCHTOWER OF THE FLOCK
Why was she called Mary Magdalene (whose variants are Maddalena and Madeleine)? There are three reasons for this, rooted in the gospel writers’ penchant for wordplay, with the last two being the more logical.
The first is that she must have come from Magdala, a bustling trade centre on the Sea of Galilee which was noted for fishing as well as fish processing. Its correct name was actually Magdal Nunaiya, meaning “Fish Tower”. Since there are several Mary’s mentioned in the gospels, Mary Magdalene had to be referred to as such to distinguish her from the rest.
The Magdal Nunaiya attribution, however, is suspicious as it seems to conform to the fish symbolism that pervades the gospels. The fish symbolism is a political rather than historical statement: it underlines the advent of the Age of Pisces as well as the fact of Jesus being a champion of the Enkite agenda as opposed to the Enlite (Jehovah’s) agenda. Enki was also known as the “Fisher God” in that he was the god of the sea.
The second had to do with the Essene order to which she belonged. Essenes categorised themselves into orders which corresponded to the 12 tribes of Israel. The women belonged to either of only two orders, that of Asher and Dan. Mary’s in particular belonged to the order of Dan. In each order, women were classified into grades.
These were Mother (12), Virgin (13), Widow (14), and Wife (15), with the lower number being senior to the higher number. A woman was classified a Virgin until she was six months pregnant, when she was promoted to Mother. As a Virgin, she was said to belong to “Great Dan”. In Greek, this was ‘Megas Dan”, which was corrupted to Magadan in daily parlance and in due course became synonymous with Magdala and hence Magdalene.
The third reason derives from Mary Magdalene’s personal status in the order of Dan. In Life of Mary Magdalene, Jacapo di Voragine says Mary “possessed the heritage of the castle of Bethany”, or rather the tower of Bethany as it should be correctly translated since Mary’s were not allowed to own property and therefore Mary Magdalene could not have possessed the heritage of a castle.
In Essene nomenclature, Bethany was a building used by the “poor” (a term applying to Essenes who were not allowed to own individual assets) at Qumran and the surrounding centres such as Mird and Ain Feshka. The poor included members of the order of Dan as all its members had to pool whatever they personally owned into a common, communal stock.
As Virgin and the bride of the Davidic heir, Mary Magdalene was the chief woman of the order of Dan and oversaw 500 women. Her title was therefore the Magdal-elder, meaning “Watchtower of the Flock”, as in MICAH 5:8, which reads, “As for you, watchtower of the flock, stronghold of Daughter Zion, the former dominion will be restored to you; kingship will come to Daughter Jerusalem". This was a high societal status (castle/tower) of community guardianship. Indeed, it is significant that in LUKE 8:2, Mary Magdalene is described as “Mary called Magdalene”, that is, Mary called the Watchtower!
Now, if Mary Magdalene was not a Jew and her real parents were not Syro the Jairus and his wife Eucharia, who were her real parents? That we unpack for you in next week’s instalment.
NEXT WEEK: WHO WAS THE QUEEN’S MOTHER?
Columns
THE KEY TO HAPPINESS
Speaking at a mental health breakfast seminar last week I emphasised to the HR managerial audience that you cannot yoga your way out of a toxic work culture. What I meant by that was that as HR practitioners we must avoid tending to look at the soft options to address mental health issues, distractions such as yoga and meditation. That’s like looking for your lost bunch of keys, then opening the front door with the spare under the mat. You’ve solved the immediate problem, but all the other keys are still missing. Don’t get me wrong; mindfulness practices, yoga exercise and taking time to smell the roses all have their place in mental wellness but it’s a bit like hacking away at the blight-ridden leaves of the tree instead of getting to the root cause of the problem.
Another point I stressed was that mental health at work shouldn’t be looked at from the individual lens – yet that’s what we do. We have counselling of employees, wellness webinars or talks but if you really want to sort out the mental health crisis that we face in our organisations you HAVE to view this more systemically and that means looking at the system and that starts with the leaders and managers.
Now. shining a light on management may not be welcomed by many. But leaders control the flow of work and set the goals and expectations that others need to live up to. Unrealistic expectations, excessive workloads and tight deadlines increase stress and force people to work longer hours … some of the things which contribute to poor mental health. Actually, we know from research exactly what contributes to a poor working environment – discrimination and inequality, excessive workloads, low job control and job insecurity – all of which pose a risk to mental health. The list goes on and is pretty exhaustive but here are the major ones: under-use of skills or being under-skilled for work; excessive workloads or work pace, understaffing; long, unsocial or inflexible hours; lack of control over job design or workload; organizational culture that enables negative behaviours; limited support from colleagues or authoritarian supervision; discrimination and exclusion; unclear job role; under- or over-promotion; job insecurity.
And to my point no amount of yoga is going to change that.
We can use the word ‘toxic’ to describe dysfunctional work environments and if our workplaces are toxic we have to look at the people who set the tone. Harder et al. (2014) define a toxic work environment as an environment that negatively impacts the viability of an organization. They specify: “It is reasonable to conclude that an organization can be considered toxic if it is ineffective as well as destructive to its employees”.
Micromanagement and/or failure to reward or recognize performance are the most obvious signs of toxic managers. These managers can be controlling, inflexible, rigid, close-minded, and lacking in self-awareness. And let’s face it managers like those I have just described are plentiful. Generally, however there is often a failure by higher management to address toxic leaders when they are considered to be high performing. This kind of situation can be one of the leading causes of unhappiness in teams. I have coached countless employees who talk about managers with bullying ways which everyone knows about, yet action is never taken. It’s problematic when we overlook unhealthy dynamics and behaviours because of high productivity or talent as it sends a clear message that the behaviour is acceptable and that others on the team will not be supported by leadership.
And how is the HR Manager viewed when they raise the unacceptable behaviour with the CEO – they are accused of not being a team player, looking for problems or failing to understand business dynamics and the need to get things done. Toxic management is a systemic problem caused when companies create cultures around high-performance and metrics vs. long-term, sustainable, healthy growth. In such instances the day-to-day dysfunction is often ignored for the sake of speed and output. While short-term gains are rewarded, executives fail to see the long-term impact of protecting a toxic, but high-performing, team or employee. Beyond this, managers promote unhealthy workplace behaviour when they recognize and reward high performers for going above and beyond, even when that means rewarding the road to burnout by praising a lack of professional boundaries (like working during their vacation and after hours).
The challenge for HR Managers is getting managers to be honest with themselves and their teams about the current work environment. Honesty is difficult, I’m afraid, especially with leaders who are overly sensitive, emotional, or cannot set healthy boundaries. But here’s the rub – no growth or change can occur if denial and defensiveness are used to protect egos. Being honest about these issues helps garner trust among employees, who already know the truth about what day-to-day dynamics are like at work. They will likely be grateful that cultural issues will finally be addressed. Conversely, if they aren’t addressed, retention failure is the cost of protecting egos of those in management.
Toxic workplace culture comes at a huge price: even before the Great Resignation, turnover related to toxic workplaces cost US employers almost $50 billion yearly! I wonder what it’s costing us here.
QUOTE
We can use the word ‘toxic’ to describe dysfunctional work environments and if our workplaces are toxic we have to look at the people who set the tone. Harder et al. (2014) define a toxic work environment as an environment that negatively impacts the viability of an organization. They specify: “It is reasonable to conclude that an organization can be considered toxic if it is ineffective as well as destructive to its employees”.
Columns
Heartache for Kelly Fisher
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o date, Princess Diana, General Atiku, had destroyed one marriage, come close to ruining another one in the offing, and now was poised to wreck yet another marriage that was already in the making. This was between Dodi Fayed and the American model Kelly Fisher.
If there was one common denominator about Diana and Dodi besides their having been born with a silver spoon in their mouths, General, it was that both were divorcees. Dodi’s matrimonial saga, however, was less problematic and acrimonious and lasted an infinitesimal 8 months. This was with yet another American model and film actress going by the name Susanne Gregard.
Dodi met Susanne in 1986, when she was only 26 years old. Like most glamourous women, she proved not to be that easy a catch and to readily incline her towards positively and expeditiously responding to his rather gallant advances, Dodi booked her as a model for the Fayed’s London mega store Harrods, where he had her travel every weekend by Concorde. They married at a rather private ceremony at Dodi’s Colorado residence in 1987 on New Year’s Day, without the blessings, bizarrely, of his all-powerful father. By September the same year, the marriage was, for reasons that were not publicised but likely due to the fact that his father had not sanctioned it, kaput.
It would take ten more years for Dodi to propose marriage to another woman, who happened to be Kelly Fisher this time around.
DODI HITCHES KELLY FISHER
Kelly and Dodi, General, met in Paris in July 1996, when Kelly was only 29 years old. In a sort of whirlwind romance, the duo fell in love, becoming a concretised item in December and formally getting engaged in February 1997.
Of course the relationship was not only about mutual love: the material element was a significant, if not vital, factor. Kelly was to give up her modelling job just so she could spend a lot more time with the new man in her life and for that she was to be handed out a compensatory reward amounting to $500,000. The engagement ring for one, which was a diamond and sapphire affair, set back Dodi in the order of $230,000. Once they had wedded, on August 9 that very year as per plan, they were to live in a $7 million 5-acre Malibu Beach mansion in California, which Dodi’s father had bought him for that and an entrepreneurial purpose. They were already even talking about embarking on making a family from the get-go: according to Kelly, Dodi wanted two boys at the very least.
Kelly naturally had the unambiguous blessings of her father-in-law as there was utterly nothing Dodi could do without the green light from the old man. When Mohamed Al Fayed was contemplating buying the Jonikal, the luxurious yacht, he invited Dodi and Kelly to inspect it too and hear their take on it.
If there was a tell-tale red flag about Dodi ab initio, General, it had to do with a $200,000 cheque he issued to Kelly as part payment of the pledged $500,000 and which was dishonoured by the bank. Throughout their 13-month-long romance, Dodi made good on only $60,000 of the promised sum. But love, as they say, General, is blind and Kelly did not care a jot about her beau’s financial indiscretions. It was enough that he was potentially a very wealthy man anyway being heir to his father’s humongous fortune.
KELLY CONSIGNED TO “BOAT CAGE”
In that summer of the year 1997, General, Dodi and Kelly were to while away quality time on the French Rivierra as well as the Jonikal after Paris. Then Dodi’s dad weighed in and put a damper on this prospect in a telephone call to Dodi on July 14. “Dodi said he was going to London and he’d be back and then we were going to San Tropez,” Kelly told the interviewer in a later TV programme. “That evening he didn’t call me and I finally got him on his portable phone. I said, ‘Dodi where are you?’ and he said he was in London. I said, ‘Ok, I’ll call you right back at your apartment’. He said, ‘No, no, don’t call me back’. So I said, ‘Dodi where are you?’ and he admitted he was in the south of France. His father had asked him to come down and not bring me, I know now.”
Since Dodi could no longer hide from Kelly and she on her part just could not desist from badgering him, he had no option but to dispatch a private Fayed jet to pick her up so that she join him forthwith in St. Tropez. This was on July 16.
Arriving in St. Tropez, Kelly, General, did not lodge at the Fayed’s seaside villa as was her expectation but was somewhat stashed in the Fayed’s maritime fleet, first in the Sakara, and later in the Cujo, which was moored only yards from the Fayed villa. It was in the Cujo Kelly spent the next two nights with Dodi. “She (Kelly) felt there was something strange going on as Dodi spent large parts of the day at the family’s villa, Castel St. Helene, but asked her to stay on the boat,” writes Martyn Gregory in The Diana Conspiracy Exposed. “Dodi was sleeping with Kelly at night and was courting Diana by day. His deception was assisted by Kelly Fisher’s modelling assignment on 18-20 July in Nice. The Fayed’s were happy to lend her the Cujo and its crew for three days to take her there.”
Dodi’s behaviour clearly was curious, General. “Dodi would say, ‘I’m going to the house and I’ll be back in half an hour’,” Kelly told Gregory. “And he’d come back three or four hours later. I was furious. I’m sitting on the boat, stuck. And he was having lunch with everyone. So he had me in my little boat cage, and I now know he was seducing Diana. So he had me, and then he would go and try and seduce her, and then he’d come back the next day and it would happen again. I was livid by this point, and I just didn’t understand what was going on. When he was with me, he was so wonderful. He said he loved me, and we talked to my mother, and we were talking about moving into the house in California.”
But as is typical of the rather romantically gullible tenderer sex, General, Kelly rationalised her man’s stratagems. “I just thought they maybe didn’t want a commoner around the Princess … Dodi kept leaving me behind with the excuse that the Princess didn’t like to meet new people.” During one of those nights, General, Dodi even had unprotected sexual relations with Kelly whilst cooing in her ear that, “I love you so much and I want you to have my baby.”
KELLY USHERED ONTO THE JONIKAL AT LONG LAST
On July 20, General, Diana returned to England and it was only then that Dodi allowed Kelly to come aboard the Jonikal. According to Debbie Gribble, who was the Jonikal’s chief stewardess, Kelly was kind of grumpy. “I had no idea at the time who she was, but I felt she acted very spoiled,” she says in Trevor Rees-Jones’ The Bodyguard’s Story. “I remember vividly that she snapped, ‘I want to eat right now. I don’t want a drink, I just want to eat now’. It was quite obvious that she was upset, angry or annoyed about something.”
Kelly’s irascible manner of course was understandable, General, given the games Dodi had been playing with her since she pitched up in St. Tropez. Granted, what happened to Kelly was very much antithetical to Dodi’s typically well-mannered nature, but the fact of the matter was that she simply was peripheral to the larger agenda, of which Dodi’s father was the one calling the shots.
On July 23, Dodi and Kelly flew to Paris, where they parted as Kelly had some engagements lined up in Los Angeles. Dodi promised to join her there on August 4 to celebrate with her her parents’ marriage anniversary. Dodi, however, General, did not make good on his promise: though he did candidly own up to the fact that he was at that point in time again with Diana, he also fibbed that he was not alone with her but was partying with her along with Elton John and George Michael. But in a August 6 phone call, he did undertake to Kelly that he would be joining her in LA in a few days’ time. In the event, anyway, General, Kelly continued to ready herself for her big day, which was slated for August 9 – until she saw “The Kiss”.
THE KISS THAT NEVER WAS
“The Kiss”, General, first featured in London’s Sunday Mirror on August 10 under that very headline. In truth, General, it was not a definitive, point-blank kiss: it was a fuzzy image of Diana and Dodi embracing on the Jonikal. A friend of Kelly faxed her the newspaper pictures in the middle of the night and Kelly was at once stunned and convulsed with rage.
But although Kelly was shocked, General, she was not exactly surprised as two or three days prior, British tabloids had already begun rhapsodising on a brewing love affair between Dodi and Diana. That day, Kelly had picked up a phone to demand an immediate explanation from her fiancé. “I started calling him in London because at this time I was expecting his arrival in a day. I called his private line, but there was no answer. So then I called the secretary and asked to speak to him she wouldn’t put me on. So Mohamed got on and in so many horrible words told me to never call back again. I said, ‘He’s my fiancé, what are you talking about?’ He hung up on me and I called back and the secretary said don’t ever call here again, your calls are no longer to be put through. It was so horrible.”
Kelly did at long last manage to reach Dodi but he was quick to protest that, “I can’t talk to you on the phone. I will talk to you in LA.” Perhaps Dodi, General, just at that stage was unable to muster sufficient Dutch courage to thrash out the matter with Kelly but a more credible reason he would not talk had to do with his father’s obsessive bugging of every communication device Dodi used and every inch of every property he owned. The following is what David Icke has to say on the subject in his iconic book The Biggest Secret:
“Ironically, Diana used to have Kensington Palace swept for listening devices and now she was in the clutches of a man for whom bugging was an obsession. The Al Fayed villa in San Tropez was bugged, as were all Fayed properties. Everything Diana said could be heard. Bob Loftus, the former Head of Security at Harrods, said that the bugging there was ‘a very extensive operation’ and was also always under the direction of Al Fayed. Henry Porter, the London Editor of the magazine Vanity Fair, had spent two years investigating Al Fayed and he said they came across his almost obsessive use of eavesdropping devices to tape telephone calls, bug rooms, and film people.”
Through mutual friends, General, Porter warned Diana about Al Fayed’s background and activities ‘because we thought this was quite dangerous for her for obvious reasons’ but Diana apparently felt she could handle it and although she knew Al Fayed could ‘sometimes be a rogue’, he was no threat to her, she thought. “He is rather more than a rogue and rather more often than ‘sometimes,” she apparently told friends. “I know he’s naughty, but that’s all.” The TV programme Dispatches said they had written evidence that Al Fayed bugged the Ritz Hotel and given his background and the deals that are hatched at the Ritz, it would be uncharacteristic if he did not. Kelly Fisher said that the whole time she was on Fayed property, she just assumed everything was bugged. It was known, she said, and Dodi had told her the bugging was so pervasive.
KELLY SUES, ALBEIT VAINLY SO
To his credit, General, Dodi was sufficiently concerned about what had transpired in St. Tropez to fly to LA and do his utmost to appease Kelly but Kelly simply was not interested as to her it was obvious enough that Diana was the new woman in his life.
On August 14, Kelly held a press conference in LA, where she announced that she was taking legal action against Dodi for breach of matrimonial contract. Her asking compensation price was £340,000. Of course the suit, General, lapsed automatically with the demise of Dodi in that Paris underpass on August 31, 1997.
Although Kelly did produce evidence of her engagement to Dodi in the form of a pricey and spectacular engagement ring, General, Mohamed Al Fayed was adamant that she never was engaged to his son and that she was no more than a gold digger.
But it is all water under the bridge now, General: Kelly is happily married to a pilot and the couple has a daughter. Her hubby may not be half as rich as Dodi potentially was but she is fully fulfilled anyway. Happiness, General, comes in all shades and does not necessarily stem from a colossal bank balance or other such trappings of affluence.
Pic Cap
THE SHORT-LIVED TRIANGLE: For about a month or so, Dodi Al Fayed juggled Princess Diana and American model Kelly Fisher, who sported Dodi’s engagement ring. Of course one of the two had to give and naturally it could not be Diana, who entered the lists in the eleventh hour but was the more precious by virtue of her royal pedigree and surpassing international stature.
NEXT WEEK: FURTHER BONDING BETWEEN DIANA AND DODI
Columns
EXTRAVAGANCE One of The Scourges in Society.
Extravagance in recent times has moved from being the practice of some rich and wealthy people of society in general and has regrettably, filtered to all levels of the society. Some of those who have the means are reckless and flaunt their wealth, and consequently, those of us who do not, borrow money to squander it in order to meet their families’ wants of luxuries and unnecessary items. Unfortunately this is a characteristic of human nature.
Adding to those feelings of inadequacy we have countless commercials to whet the consumer’s appetite/desire to buy whatever is advertised, and make him believe that if he does not have those products he will be unhappy, ineffective, worthless and out of tune with the fashion and trend of the times. This practice has reached a stage where many a bread winner resorts to taking loans (from cash loans or banks) with high rates of interest, putting himself in unnecessary debt to buy among other things, furniture, means of transport, dress, food and fancy accommodation, – just to win peoples’ admiration.
Islam and most religions discourage their followers towards wanton consumption. They encourage them to live a life of moderation and to dispense with luxury items so they will not be enslaved by them. Many people today blindly and irresponsibly abandon themselves to excesses and the squandering of wealth in order to ‘keep up with the Joneses’.
The Qur’aan makes it clear that allowing free rein to extravagance and exceeding the limits of moderation is an inherent characteristic in man. Allah says, “If Allah were to enlarge the provision for his servants, they would indeed transgress beyond all bounds.” [Holy Qur’aan 42: 27]
Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said, “Observe the middle course whereby you will attain your objective (that is paradise).” – Moderation is the opposite of extravagance.
Every individual is meant to earn in a dignified manner and then spend in a very wise and careful manner. One should never try to impress upon others by living beyond one’s means. Extravagance is forbidden in Islam, Allah says, “Do not be extravagant; surely He does not love those who are extravagant!” [Holy Qur’aan 7: 31]
The Qur’aan regards wasteful buying of food, extravagant eating that sometimes leads to throwing away of leftovers as absolutely forbidden. Allah says, “Eat of the fruits in their season, but render the dues that are proper on the day that the harvest is gathered. And waste not by excess, for Allah loves not the wasters.” [Holy Qur’aan 6: 141]
Demonstrating wastefulness in dress, means of transport, furniture and any other thing is also forbidden. Allah says, “O children of Adam! Wear your apparel of adornment at every time and place of worship, and eat and drink but do not be extravagant; surely He does not love those who are extravagant!” [Holy Qur’aan 7: 31]
Yet extravagance and the squandering of wealth continue to grow in society, while there are many helpless and deprived peoples who have no food or shelter. Just look around you here in Botswana.
Have you noticed how people squander their wealth on ‘must have’ things like designer label clothes, fancy brand whiskey, fancy top of the range cars, fancy society parties or even costly weddings, just to make a statement? How can we prevent the squandering of such wealth?
How can one go on spending in a reckless manner possibly even on things that have been made forbidden while witnessing the suffering of fellow humans whereby thousands of people starve to death each year. Islam has not forbidden a person to acquire wealth, make it grow and make use of it. In fact Islam encourages one to do so. It is resorting to forbidden ways to acquiring and of squandering that wealth that Islam has clearly declared forbidden. On the Day of Judgment every individual will be asked about his wealth, where he obtained it and how he spent it.
In fact, those who do not have any conscience about their wasteful habits may one day be subjected to Allah’s punishment that may deprive them of such wealth overnight and impoverish them. Many a family has been brought to the brink of poverty after leading a life of affluence. Similarly, many nations have lived a life of extravagance and their people indulged in such excesses only to be later inflicted by trials and tribulations to such a point that they wished they would only have a little of what they used to possess!
With the festive season and the new year holidays having passed us, for many of us meant ‘one’ thing – spend, spend, spend. With the festivities and the celebrations over only then will the reality set in for many of us that we have overspent, deep in debt with nothing to show for it and that the following months are going to be challenging ones.
Therefore, we should not exceed the bounds when Almighty bestows His bounties upon us. Rather we should show gratefulness to Him by using His bestowments and favours in ways that prove our total obedience to Him and by observing moderation in spending. For this will be better for us in this life and the hereafter.