The Riddle of Kingu
Columns
Benson C Saili
THIS EARTH, MY BROTHER…
In recent years, the Moon has received very bad rap from certain diehard but well-meaning “detractors”. One particular school of thought, which has been advanced by several researchers of renown who include the iconic David Icke, holds that the Moon is not a natural satellite of Earth but is in fact an artificial construct. That is to say, it is secondarily artificial, as initially it was a natural celestial body which was mechanically hollowed out and transformed into a spaceship – what the Orions call a MATA – which was finally stationed around planet Earth as a watchtower and as a base from which to broadcasts frequencies that serve to manipulate mankind at an energetic, physical, mental and emotional level.
The Moon certainly does affect our planet and its people in a number of ways. Everybody who has done geography will be aware that the Moon is behind much of the tides we see at sea thanks to its gravitational tugs at our planet. As humans, we are 75 percent water and if the Moon can affect insentient bodies of water such as oceans, then we too are bound to be affected by it as a matter of course. It is common knowledge that people who are mentally deranged take a turn for the worse when the Moon is at full brilliance, the reason another term used to refer to such people is “lunatic” – from lunar, meaning moon. A woman’s menstrual cycle occurs once every 28 days – a lunar month, the time it takes for the Moon to make one revolution around the Earth. The full term of a pregnancy is 280 days, which is 10 lunar months.
There are also certain aspects about the Moon itself that are particularly concerning. We only see one side of its surface. It’s like it doesn’t rotate at all (which many including myself believe is the case), which is unusual for a celestial body as all natural celestial bodies rotate around their axes. The Moon is also unusually huge to be Earth’s natural satellite. It is quarter the size of Earth, which makes it the odd one out: all major satellites of other planets in the Solar System are much smaller in proportion to the size of the planets they circle around. For example, Jupiter’s largest moon, Ganymede, is in fact the largest satellite in the Solar System and is larger than Mercury and Pluto and only slightly smaller than Mars. Yet compared to Jupiter, Ganymede is about 26 times smaller. As an inner planet, Earth is by rights not supposed to have a moon of its own. There are four inner planets – Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. Mercury and Venus do not have moons and the two moons we see about Mars are, we now know , captured asteroids. But the enigma of our Moon does not end here.
On November 20 1969, the Apollo 12 crew crashed a lunar module into the surface of the moon from the safety of the command module in a bid to artificially create a “moonquake” and study the results thereof. What happened astounded and astonished the astronomical buffs at NASA. The moon rang like a bell for about 30 minutes, raising suspicions that it was not an entirely compact mass like Earth but was actually hollow and was largely made of processed metallic material. In April 1970, Apollo 13 repeated the same experiment and this time around the reverberations lasted for 3 hours and 20 minutes and the Moon in fact wobbled slightly.
Signs abound that the Moon is more artificial than natural. What exactly is the truth?
A DRIFTING EGG?
The hypothesis of a hollow Moon is supported by the legendary Zulu shaman, Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa, who is respected the world over as arguably the most knowledgeable man (in terms of the saga of planet Earth) on our continent. Mutwa, now 94 but with all his faculties intact despite one episode of a serious stroke of which he was metaphysically cured by two Germans (his healing was recorded live and you can watch it on YouTube on this address: HYPERLINK "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z66nUYyIrHc" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z66nUYyIrHc), says the Moon was brought here ages ago by two “Reptilian” brothers called Wowane and Mpanku, having been dragged all the way from the cosmic region of the “Great Fire Dragon” (the Draco star system). Mutwa says Zulu legends characterise the Moon as an “egg” because before it was rolled across space, it was emptied of its “yoke”, or outer core, so that Reptilians could dwell inside it.
To those who like me are avid students of the chronicles of our planet, Mutwa’s take does ring a familiar bell. The Sumerian records talk of the brothers Enlil and Enki who came from the planet Nibiru and whilst on Earth vied for its control. The Gnostics, the secretive, spiritually enlightened brotherhood of which Jesus was a member, make repeated mention of an extraterrestrial race they called the “Archons” – the Reptilian rulers of Earth who the apostle Paul described as “powers and principalities” (EPHESIANS 6:12). We have also previously related that the hollowed-out planetoids constituted part of the SSS race’s (the Orion beings) spacefaring warfare technology, which they called the MATA. The Moon therefore could have been exactly such before it was finally parked around our planet.
Planetary scientists and pundits are not short of voices that punt the fact of the Moon being a hollow body. In 1962, NASA scientist Dr Gordon MacDonald stated that, “If the astronomical data are reduced, it is found that the data require that the interior of the Moon is more like a hollow than a homogeneous sphere”. The Nobel-winning American physical chemist Harold Urey said large areas in the Moon were “simply a cavity”. The planetary geologist Sean C Simon wrote that, “The Lunar Orbiter experiments (mentioned in the first section of this piece) vastly improved our knowledge of the Moon’s gravitational field … indicating the frightening possibility that the Moon might be hollow”. The famous astronomer Carl Sagan pointed out that if the Moon was hollow, then it was not a natural satellite because “a natural satellite cannot be a hollow object.”
In a 1970 article titled Is the Moon the Creation of Alien Intelligence in the Soviet magazine Sputnik, Mikhail Vasin and Alexander Shcherbakov concluded that the Moon was a hollowed-out planetoid. Dr Don Anderson, a professor of geophysics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, seemed to confirm this inference when he said “the Moon is made inside out”, meaning it has been dug up over the ages.
The argument that the Moon is “hollow as an egg” is a persuasive one but the notion that it was artificially driven over by extraterrestrial beings is not and should be taken figuratively and not literally. What must have given rise to the legend that “two Reptilian brothers” conveyed the Moon aloft are aspects of the Sumerian records. As we have already hinted, Enki, the great Anunnaki scientist who genetically engineered modern man into existence, and his step brother Enlil, the Jehovah of the Bible, had colonies on the Moon when they were directly running the affairs of Earth, a topic we will dwell on at length in due course. Administrative-wise, control of the Moon, as was that of Earth, alternated between the Enkites (Enki’s clan) and the Enlilites (Enlil’s clan) from one zodiacal age to another, or in periods of roughly 2160 years. It is this state of affairs that could have confused matters and spawned the legend that the Moon was brought in Earth’s vicinity by two “Reptilian” brothers.
Otherwise, the Sumerian records are mater-of-fact as to how the Moon became Earth’s satellite. It all resulted from the Celestial Battle 4 billion years ago as we have already narrated, when Nibiru smashed the primeval planet Tiamat, splintering it into a screen of asteroid debris and one intact piece which was thrust into a new orbit and became our Earth. Tiamat’s major moon, Kingu (meaning “Earth’s sentry”, or protector), was dragged along by the new Earth to become the Moon.
A RELATIONSHIP BORN OF CHAOS
Planetary geologists who have studied samples of the Moon’s rocks and dust brought to Earth through various Apollo missions have found that there is significant variation as to the age of the Moon’s geophysical features. Like Earth, the Moon is essentially 4.6 billion years old but Moon rock and dust samples range from 3.9 billion to 5.3 billion years old, with the dust upon which the rocks rest older than the rocks themselves. Even the chemical composition of the dust upon which the rocks sit differ remarkably from the rocks themselves.
One particular rock, dubbed the Genesis Rock, turned out to be 4.1 billon years old. Scientists actually note that “the age of many samples of lunar rocks (that formed by intense impacts with celestial trajectiles) cuts off rather sharply at 4 billion years; few older rocks have survived.” This phenomenon they attribute to a “widespread cataclysmic episode of intense bombardment that destroyed older rocks and surfaces of the planets” and which took place “between the origin of the Moon about 4.6 billion years ago and 4 billion years ago, when the catastrophe occurred”.
Exactly what this “catastrophe” that occurred 4 billion years ago was remains a unsolved puzzle. Well, the Sumerians did detail this catastrophe in their cuneiform clay tablets 6000 years ago. They called it the Celestial Battle, which pitted an incoming planet Nibiru against the primordial planet Tiamat in the main and resulted in the “creation” of Earth and the disposition around it of a sole satellite the Sumerians called Kingu but which we call the Moon.
Planetary scientists have also noted that the Moon has all the attributes of a planet in its own right: the only thing it lacks is an own circuit around the Sun. “Perhaps the most important of all, exploration of the Moon has shown that it is not a simple, uncomplicated sphere but a true planetary body,” said a 1972 article by an astronomer in a highly esteemed magazine. One upon a time, say astronomers, the Moon had a “full-fledged atmosphere whose volatile elements and compounds included hydrogen, helium, argon, sulfur, carbon compounds, and water,” all of which are conducive to organic life. In point of fact, the Moon, like Mars, is not entirely a vacuum even in our day: it has a thin atmosphere.
The few astronomers who voice doubt as to the Moon’s de facto status as a planet should consult the Sumerian records for a rude awakening. The Sumerians tell us that at about the time of the Celestial Battle, Kingu, Tiamat’s lead satellite of the total collection of 11 moons, was just on the cusp of becoming an independent planet when Nibiru “intervened” and kept Kingu in its place. Kingu had grown to an unusual size because of the ongoing perturbations and chaotic conditions in the newly formed Solar System. In the allegorical language of an iconic Sumerian text dubbed the Enuma Elish, Kingu’s “promotion” is related thus: “She (Tiamat) gave him (Kingu) a Tablet of Destinies (it’s own orbit around the Sun), fastened it on his breast … Kingu was elevated, had received a heavenly rank (had become a “god” as planets were generally referred to in the Sumerian cosmogony).”
We have already brought attention to the fact that the moon is just too big to be a natural satellite of a small planet like Earth. The moon is 3456 km in diameter, a quarter of Earth’s, and one-eighth of its mass. It’s the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and is even bigger than Pluto. Moreover, scientists have wondered that “instead of a swarm of smaller moons, a too small Earth has ended up with a single, too-large moon.” Well, isn’t that what the Sumerians have been telling us all along – that Kingu (the Moon) was once one of the 11 satellites of the much larger, watery planet Tiamat and had grown to a size where it was just about to become its own planet with its own orbit around the Sun? Says the Enuma Elish: “She (Tiamat) has set up an assembly… and added matchless weapons, has borne monster-gods… withal eleven of this kind she has brought forth; from among the gods who formed her assembly, she has elevated Kingu, her first-born, made him chief …”
Earth and the Moon are not spontaneous kinsfolk: they are circumstantial relatives. Their relationship was forged out of chaos and no by natural design.
A POT OF LEAD
Planetary scientists have documented two significant elements about the Moon as a physical feature. The first is that it is shrinking and that this process has been on-going since days immemorial. In 2010, NASA announced on its website that analysis of images from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (a robotic spacecraft currently orbiting the Moon and which was launched in 2009) showed that the Moon was shrinking and that “newly discovered cliffs in the lunar crust indicate that the Moon shrunk globally in the geologically recent past and might still be shrinking today”. The shrinking arises from its being greatly depleted of iron, resulting in a low mean density.
The second is that the Moon has a substantial portion of what is called “parentless lead”. This resulted from the moon’s radioactive elements such as uranium and radon having “decayed” to give rise to lead as happens in the intermediary stages of the radioactive decay process (the top few miles of the Moon are said to be very rich in radioactive elements such as Uranium). According to studies done by scientists at Britain’s New Castle Upon Tyne University, this degenerative transformation of uranium and radon to lead began 4 billion years ago – the exact time of the Celestial Battle courtesy of the Sumerian chronicles!
During the Celestial Battle, says the Enuma Elish, Nibiru, when it disrupted Kingu, reduced it to a DUGGAE, meaning “pot of lead” as captured in this passage: “And Kingu, who had become chief among them (the moons of Tiamat), he (Nibiru) made shrink; as God DUGGAE he counted him.” Thus what has only recently come to be scientifically attested by modern science was already known by the Sumerians 6000 years ago as a fact of history. Says the iconic Sumerologist Zechariah Sitchin in his book Genesis Revisited: “The Apollo discoveries suggest that the Sumerian term (DUGGAE) was literally and scientifically correct. The Sumerian assertion that Kingu was turned into a pot of lead is an accurate scientific statement.”
More will be said about the Moon in a special lunar series at a later date.
NEXT WEEK: NIBIRU AWASH IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
Columns
GONE FISHING
In recent years, using personal devices in working environments has become so commonplace it now has its own acronym, BOYD (Bring Your Own Device). But as employees skip between corporate tools and personal applications on their own devices, their actions introduce a number of possible risks that should be managed and mitigated with careful consideration. Consider these examples:
Si-lwli, a small family-run business in Wales, is arguably as niche a company as you could find, producing talking toys used to promote the Welsh language. Their potential market is small, with only some 300,000 Welsh language speakers in the world and in reality the business is really more of a hobby for the husband-and-wife team, who both still have day jobs. Yet, despite still managing to be successful in terms of sales, the business is now fighting for survival after recently falling prey to cybercriminals. Emails between Si-Iwli and their Chinese suppliers were intercepted by hackers who altered the banking details in the correspondence, causing Si-Iwli to hand over £18,000 (around P ¼ m) to the thieves. That might not sound much to a large enterprise, but to a small or medium business it can be devastating.
Another recent SMB hacking story which appeared in the Wall Street Journal concerned Innovative Higher Ed Consulting (IHED) Inc, a small New York start-up with a handful of employees. IHED didn’t even have a website, but fraudsters were able to run stolen credit card numbers through the company’s payment system and reverse the charges to the tune of $27,000, around the same loss faced by Si-Iwli. As the WSJ put it, the hackers completely destroyed the company, forcing its owners to fold.
And in May 2019, the city of Baltimore’s computer system was hit by a ransomware attack, with hackers using a variant called RobinHood. The hack, which has lasted more than a month, paralysed the computer system for city employees, with the hackers demanding a payment in Bitcoin to give access back to the city.
Of course, hackers target governments or business giants but small and medium businesses are certainly not immune. In fact, 67% of SMBs reported that they had experienced a cyber attack across a period of 12 months, according to a 2018 survey carried out by security research firm Ponemon Institute. Additionally, Verizon issued a report in May 2019 that small businesses accounted for 43% of its reported data breaches. Once seen as less vulnerable than PCs, smartphone attacks are on the rise, with movements like the Dark Caracal spyware campaign underlining the allure of mobile devices to hackers. Last year, the US Federal Trade Commission released a statement calling for greater education on mobile security, coming at a time when around 42% of all Android devices are believed to not carry the latest security updates.
This is an era when employees increasingly use their smartphones for work-related purposes so is your business doing enough to protect against data breaches on their employees’ phones? The SME Cyber Crime Survey 2018 carried out for risk management specialists AON showed that more than 80% of small businesses did not view this as a threat yet if as shown, 67% of SMBs were said to have been victims of hacking, either the stats are wrong or business owners are underestimating their vulnerability. A 2019 report by PricewaterhouseCoopers suggests the latter, stating that the majority of global businesses are unprepared for cyber attacks.
Consider that a workstation no longer means a desk in an office: It can be a phone in the back of a taxi or Uber; a laptop in a coffee shop, or a tablet in an airport lounge. Wherever the device is used, employees can potentially install applications that could be harmful to your business, even from something as seemingly insignificant as clicking on an accidental download or opening a link on a phishing email. Out of the physical workplace, your employees’ activities might not have the same protections as they would on a company-monitored PC.
Yet many businesses not only encourage their employees to work remotely, but assume working from coffee shops, bookstores, and airports can boost employees’ productivity. Unfortunately, many remote hot spots do not provide secure Wi-Fi so if your employee is accessing their work account on unsecured public Wi-Fi, sensitive business data could be at risk. Furthermore, even if your employee uses a company smartphone or has access to company data through a personal mobile device, there is always a chance data could be in jeopardy with a lost or stolen device, even information as basic as clients’ addresses and phone numbers.
BOYDs are also at risk from malware designed to harm and infect the host system, transmittable to smartphones when downloading malicious third-party apps. Then there is ransomware, a type of malware used by hackers to specifically take control of a system’s data, blocking access or threatening to release sensitive information unless a ransom is paid such as the one which affected Baltimore. Ransomware attacks are on the increase, predicted to occur every 14 seconds, potentially costing billions of dollars per year.
Lastly there is phishing – the cyber equivalent of the metaphorical fishing exercise – whereby cybercriminals attempt to obtain sensitive data –usernames, passwords, credit card details –usually through a phoney email designed to look legitimate which directs the user to a fraudulent website or requests the data be emailed back directly. Most of us like to think we could recognize a phishing email when we see it, but these emails have become more sophisticated and can come through other forms of communication such as messaging apps.
Bottom line is to be aware of the potential problems with BOYDs and if in doubt, consult your IT security consultants. You can’t put the own-device genie back in the bottle but you can make data protection one of your three wishes!
Columns
“I Propose to Diana Tonight”
About five days before Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed landed in Paris, General Atiku, a certain Edward Williams was taking a walk in a woods in the Welsh town of Mountain Ash. Williams, then 73, was a psychic of some renown. He had in the past foretold assassination attempts on US President Ronald Reagan, which occurred on March 30, 1981, and Pope John Paul II, which came to pass on May 13, 1981.
As he trudged the woods, Williams had a sudden premonition that pointed to Diana’s imminent fate as per Christopher Andersen’s book The Day Diana Died. “When the vision struck me, it was as if everything around me was obscured and replaced by shadowy figures,” Williams was later to reminisce. “In the middle was the face of Princess Diana. Her expression was sad and full of pathos. She was wearing what looked like a floral dress with a short dark cardigan. But it was vague. I went cold with fear and knew it was a sign that she was in danger.”
Williams hastily beat a retreat to his home, which he shared with his wife Mary, and related to her his presentiment, trembling like an aspen leaf as he did so. “I have never seen him so upset,” Mary recounted. “He felt he was given a sign and when he came back from his walk he was deeply shaken.”
The following day, Williams frantically sauntered into a police station to inform the police of his premonition. The officer who attended to him would have dismissed him as no more than a crackpot but he treated him seriously in view of the accuracy of his past predictions. He took a statement and immediately passed it on to the Special Branch Investigative Unit.
The report read as follows:
“On 27 August, at 14:12 hrs, a man by the name of Edward Williams came to Mountain Ash police station. He said he was a psychic and predicted that Princess Diana was going to die. In previous years, he has predicted that the Pope and Ronald Reagan were going to be the victims of assassination attempts. On both occasions he was proved to be correct. Mr Williams appeared to be quite normal.”
Williams, General, was spot-on as usual: four days later, the princess was no more.
Meanwhile, General, even as Dodi and Diana were making their way to the Fayed-owned Ritz Hotel in central Paris, British newspapers were awash with headlines that suggested Diana was kind of deranged. Writes Andrew Morton in Diana in Pursuit of Love: “In The Independent Diana was described as ‘a woman with fundamentally nothing to say about anything’. She was ‘suffering from a form of arrested development’. ‘Isn’t it time she started using her head?’ asked The Mail on Sunday. The Sunday Mirror printed a special supplement entitled ‘A Story of Love’; The News of the World claimed that William had demanded that Diana should split from Dodi: ‘William can’t help it, he just doesn’t like the man.’ William was reportedly ‘horrified’ and ‘doesn’t think Mr Fayed is good for his mother’ – or was that just the press projecting their own prejudices? The upmarket Sunday Times newspaper, which had first serialised my biography of the princess, now put her in the psychiatrist’s chair for daring to be wooed by a Muslim. The pop-psychologist Oliver James put Diana ‘On the Couch’, asking why she was so ‘depressed’ and desperate for love. Other tabloids piled in with dire prognostications – about Prince Philip’s hostility to the relationship, Diana’s prospect of exile, and the social ostracism she would face if she married Dodi.”
DIANA AND DODI AT THE RITZ
Before Diana and Dodi departed the Villa Windsor sometime after 16 hrs, General, one of Dodi’s bodyguards Trevor Rees-Jones furtively asked Diana as to what the programme for the evening was. This Trevor did out of sheer desperation as Dodi had ceased and desisted from telling members of his security detail, let alone anyone else for that matter, what his onward destination was for fear that that piece of information would be passed on to the paparazzi. Diana kindly obliged Trevor though her response was terse and scarcely revealing. “Well, eventually we will be going out to a restaurant”, that was all Diana said. Without advance knowledge of exactly what restaurant that was, Trevor and his colleagues’ hands were tied: they could not do a recce on it as was standard practice for the security team of a VIP principal. Dodi certainly, General, was being recklessly by throwing such caution to the winds.
At about 16:30, Diana and Dodi drew up at the Ritz Hotel, where they were received by acting hotel manager Claude Roulet. The front entrance of the hotel was already crawling with paparazzi, as a result of which the couple took the precaution of using the rear entrance, where hopefully they would make their entry unperturbed and unmolested. The first thing they did when they were ensconced in the now $10,000 a night Imperial Suite was to spend some time on their mobiles and set about touching base with friends, relations, and associates. Diana called at least two people, her clairvoyant friend Rita Rogers and her favourite journalist Richard Kay of The Daily Mail.
Rita, General, was alarmed that Diana had proceeded to venture to Paris notwithstanding the warning she had given Dodi and herself in relation to what she had seen of him in the crystal ball when the couple had consulted her. When quizzed as to what the hell she indeed was doing in Paris at that juncture, Diana replied that she and Dodi had simply come to do some shopping, which though partially true was not the material reason they were there. “But Diana, remember what I told Dodi,” Rita said somewhat reprovingly. Diana a bit apprehensively replied, “Yes I remember. I will be careful. I promise.” Well, she did not live up to her promise as we shall soon unpack General.
As for Richard Kay, Diana made known to him that, “I have decided I am going to radically change my life. I am going to complete my obligations to charities and to the anti-personnel land mines cause, but in November I want to completely withdraw from formal public life.”
Once she was done with her round of calls, Diana went down to the hair saloon by the hotel swimming pool to have her hair washed and blow-dried ahead of the scheduled evening dinner.
THE “TELL ME YES” RING IS DELIVERED
Since the main object of their Paris trip was to pick up the “Tell Me Yes” engagement ring Dodi had ordered in Monte Carlo a week earlier, Dodi decided to check on Repossi Jewellery, which was right within the Ritz prencincts, known as the Place Vendome. It could have taken less than a minute for Dodi to get to the store on foot but he decided to use a car to outsmart the paparazzi invasion. He was driven there by Trevor Rees-Jones, with Alexander Kez Wingfield and Claude Roulet following on foot, though he entered the shop alone.
The Repossi store had closed for the holiday season but Alberto Repossi, accompanied by his wife and brother-in-law, had decided to travel all the way from his home in Monaco and momentarily open it for the sake of the potentially highly lucrative Dodi transaction. Alberto, however, disappointed Dodi as the ring he had chosen was not the one he produced. The one he showed Dodi was pricier and perhaps more exquisite but Dodi was adamant that he wanted the exact one he had ordered as that was what Diana herself had picked. It was a ploy on the part of Repossi to make a real killing on the sale, his excuse to that effect being that Diana deserved a ring tha was well worthy of her social pedigree. With Dodi having expressed disaffection, Repossi rendered his apologies and assured Dodi he would make the right ring available shortly, whereupon Dodi repaired back to the hotel to await its delivery. But Dodi did insist nonetheless that the pricier ring be delivered too in case it appealed to Diana anyway.
Repossi delivered the two rings an hour later. They were collected by Roulet. On inspecting them, Dodi chose the very one he had seen in Monte Carlo, apparently at the insistence of Diana. There is a possibility that Diana, who was very much aware of her public image and was not comfortable with ostentatious displays of wealth, may have deliberately shown an interest in a less expensive engagement ring. It may have been a purely romantic as opposed to a prestigious choice for her.
The value of the ring, which was found on a wardrobe shelf in Dodi’s apartment after the crash, has been estimated to be between $20,000 and $250,000 as Repossi has always refused to be drawn into revealing how much Dodi paid for it. The sum, which enjoyed a 25 percent discount, was in truth paid for not by Dodi himself but by his father as was the usual practice.
Dodi was also shown Repossi’s sketches for a bracelet, a watch, and earrings which he proposed to create if Diana approved of them.
DIANA AND DODI GUSH OVER IMMINENT NUPTIALS
At about 7 pm, Dodi and Diana left the Ritz and headed for Dodi’s apartment at a place known as the Arc de Trompe. They went there to properly tog themselves out for the scheduled evening dinner. They spent two hours at the luxurious apartment. As usual, the ubiquitous paparazzi were patiently waiting for them there.
As they lingered in the apartment, Dodi beckoned over to his butler Rene Delorm and showed him the engagement ring. “Dodi came into my kitchen,” Delorm relates. “He looked into the hallway to check that Diana couldn’t hear and reached into his pocket and pulled out the box … He said, ‘Rene, I’m going to propose to the princess tonight. Make sure that we have champagne on ice when we come back from dinner’.” Rene described the ring as “a spectacular diamond encrusted ring, a massive emerald surrounded by a cluster of diamonds, set on a yellow and white gold band sitting in a small light-grey velvet box”.
Just before 9 pm, Dodi called the brother of his step-father, Hassan Yassen, who also was staying at the Ritz that night, and told him that he hoped to get married to Diana by the end of the year.
Later that same evening, both Dodi and Diana would talk to Mohamed Al Fayed, Dodi’s dad, and make known to him their pre-nuptial intentions. “They called me and said we’re coming back (to London) on Sunday (August 31) and on Monday (September 1) they are
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RAMADAN – The Blessed Month of Fasting
Ramadan is the fasting month for Muslims, where over one billion Muslims throughout the world fast from dawn to sunset, and pray additional prayers at night. It is a time for inner reflection, devotion to Allah, and self-control. It is the ninth month in the Islamic calendar. As you read this Muslims the world over have already begun fasting as the month of Ramadan has commenced (depending on the sighting of the new moon).
‘The month of Ramadan is that in which the Qur’an was revealed as guidance for people, in it are clear signs of guidance and Criterion, therefore whoever of you who witnesses this month, it is obligatory on him to fast it. But whoever is ill or traveling let him fast the same number of other days, God desires ease for you and not hardship, and He desires that you complete the ordained period and glorify God for His guidance to you, that you may be grateful”. Holy Qur’an (2 : 185)
Fasting during Ramadan is one of the five pillars upon which the structure of Islam is built. The other four are: the declaration of one’s belief in Allah’s oneness and in the message of Muhammad (PBUH); regular attendance to prayer; payment of zakaat (obligatory charity); and the pilgrimage to Mecca.
As explained in an earlier article, fasting includes total abstinence from eating, drinking, smoking, refraining from obscenity, avoiding getting into arguments and including abstaining from marital relations, from sunrise to sunset. While fasting may appear to some as difficult Muslims see it as an opportunity to get closer to their Lord, a chance to develop spiritually and at the same time the act of fasting builds character, discipline and self-restraint.
Just as our cars require servicing at regular intervals, so do Muslims consider Ramadan as a month in which the body and spirit undergoes as it were a ‘full service’. This ‘service’ includes heightened spiritual awareness both the mental and physical aspects and also the body undergoing a process of detoxification and some of the organs get to ‘rest’ through fasting.
Because of the intensive devotional activity fasting, Ramadan has a particularly high importance, derived from its very personal nature as an act of worship but there is nothing to stop anyone from privately violating Allah’s commandment of fasting if one chooses to do so by claiming to be fasting yet eating on the sly. This means that although fasting is obligatory, its observance is purely voluntary. If a person claims to be a Muslim, he is expected to fast in Ramadan.
The reward Allah gives for proper fasting is very generous. Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) quotes Allah as saying: “All actions done by a human being are his own except fasting, which belongs to Me and I will reward it accordingly.” We are also told by the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) that the reward for proper fasting is admittance into heaven.
Fasting earns great reward when it is done in a ‘proper’ manner. This is because every Muslim is required to make his worship perfect. For example perfection of fasting can be achieved through restraint of one’s feelings and emotions. Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said that when fasting, a person should not allow himself to be drawn into a quarrel or a slanging match. He teaches us: “On a day of fasting, let no one of you indulge in any obscenity, or enter into a slanging match. Should someone abuse or fight him, let him respond by saying: ‘I am fasting!’”
This high standard of self-restraint fits in well with fasting, which is considered as an act of self-discipline. Islam requires us to couple patience with voluntary abstention from indulgence in our physical desires. The purpose of fasting helps man to attain a high degree of sublimity, discipline and self-restraint. In other words, this standard CAN BE achieved by every Muslim who knows the purpose of fasting and strives to fulfill it.
Fasting has another special aspect. It makes all people share in the feelings of hunger and thirst. In normal circumstances, people with decent income may go from one year’s end to another without experiencing the pangs of hunger which a poor person may feel every day of his life. Such an experience helps to draw the rich one’s conscience nearer to needs of the poor. A Muslim is encouraged to be more charitable and learns to give generously for a good cause.
Fasting also has a universal or communal aspect to it. As Muslims throughout the world share in this blessed act of worship, their sense of unity is enhanced by the fact that every Muslim individual joins willingly in the fulfillment of this divine commandment. This is a unity of action and purpose, since they all fast in order to be better human beings. As a person restrains himself from the things he desires most, in the hope that he will earn Allah’s pleasure, self-discipline and sacrifice become part of his nature.
The month of Ramadan can aptly be described as a “season of worship.” Fasting is the main aspect of worship in this month, because people are more attentive to their prayers, read the Qur’an more frequently and also strive to improve on their inner and outer character. Thus, their devotion is more complete and they feel much happier in Ramadan because they feel themselves to be closer to their Creator.