Nibiru in Genesis
Benson C Saili
THIS EARTH, MY BROTHER…
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said: ‘Let there be light’ and there was light.”
These are the opening three verses of Genesis (1-3). According to conventional Christian theology, the passage depicts the God of the Universe and all Dimensions, the First Source, creating out of nothing the heavens – that is, the cosmos – and the planet Earth as an ethereally beautiful place. Then after Lucifer, the archangel, rebels against God, he and his followers, a third of the angelic host, are banished from God’s dwelling place in the spiritual realms, also called Heaven, and cast down to Earth, as a result of which Earth becomes a chaotic, dark, convoluted God-forsaken place. Then eons later, God decides to restore Earth to its original glory in preparation for the creation of material life thereon. So in his other form, the Holy Spirit (the third person of a Trinity of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit), God hovers over Earth. Since Earth is engulfed in impenetrable darkness, the first thing God calls into existence is light.
As is the norm rather than the exception, Christianity is at it again – guilty of unduly “spriritualising” the scriptures. This habit of reading into scripture a meaning wholly at variance with the facts on the ground I call deliberate distortion. Our preachers, in the pulpits and on the silver screen, peddle a whole litany of falsehoods day in and day out “in the name of the Lord” and these have been so repeated over time that Christians accept them as unimpeachable truth. Those levelheaded Christians who are well-grounded in the background knowledge and interpret the Bible factually and realistically are branded “heretics”. Mainstream Christians are perishing in ignorance because they lack knowledge; this is what the Bible itself says (HOSEA 4:6).
So let me at the risk of being called a heretic call your typical preacher’s bluff.
NIBIRU INVADES
Firstly, what the body of Christians do not know but which their pastors conceal from them (pastors who have been to a proper Bible College) is that the tales of Genesis are simply summarised versions of very detailed records the Sumerians wrote down between two to three thousand years before the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, was compiled. The Sumerian writings were dictated by the Anunnaki, the technologically and gnostically advanced extraterrestrials from the planet Nibiru who settled on Earth 450,000 years ago and in time fashioned mankind.
According to the Sumerian records, GENESIS VERSES 1-3 ought to read as follows: When, in the beginning, The Lord created the Heaven and the Earth, the Earth, not yet formed, was in the void, and there was darkness upon Tiamat. Then the Wind of the Lord swept upon its waters and The Lord commanded, “Let there be lightning!” and there was a bright light.
The Genesis writers researched from a series of Sumerian tablets, notably the Enuma Elish, also called the Epic of Creation. Whereas the Enuma Elish documents the beginning proper – the formation of the Solar System 5 billion years ago – the Genesis writers skipped all that and went directly to the Celestial Battle of 4 billion years ago and its aftermath (refer to recent write-ups).
We have already learnt that one of the names the Sumerians gave to the planet Nibiru was “The Celestial Lord”, or simply “The Lord”, because it is Nibiru that not only caused the coming into being of planet Earth from the original planet Tiamat (a series of events Sumerians referred to as the Celestial Battle) but also basically reordered the Solar System in the geophysical effects it brought about. Nibiru fashioned Earth from Tiamat – a big, watery planet at least twice the size of Earth that lay between Mars and Jupiter – using its moons, called Winds of The Lord (Nibiru) in Sumerian, as its weapons as well as electrical bolts of lightning that it fired forth as typified a young planet. In the Hebrew version of Genesis, the word used for wind is RUACH and accurately so. But the theological English Bible translations substitute the word RUACH for “the Spirit of God”. Talk of forgery!
Thus Day 1 in Genesis, on which light is “formed”, is actually the first phase of the Celestial Battle – when Nibiru came into the Solar System from outer space and tore into the planet Tiamat not by itself but by its moons. The word translated “Heaven” in Verse 1 is the Hebrew word SHAMAIM. It literally means “where the waters used to be” – the Asteroid Belt of today, the site of the primordial, watery planet Tiamat. Thus if we were to properly recast VERSE 1, it should read as follows: Earth and the Asteroid Belt came about because of Nibiru, when it struck the watery planet Tiamat using its moons as battering rams, its lightning bolts lighting the darkness of space as it hit and split Tiamat.
TIAMAT SPLITS INTO NEW EARTH AND ASTEROID BELT
The formation of the Asteroid Belt is described in a little bit more detail in VERSES 6-8. Properly translated, the verses read as follows: And the Elohim said: Let there be a Firmament in the midst of the waters and let it divide the waters from the waters. And the Elohim made the Firmament, dividing the waters which are under the Firmament from the waters which are above the Firmament. And the Elohim called the Firmament “Heaven”.
In English versions of the Bible, the term Elohim is rendered “God”. This is false: the proper translation is “gods”. Elohim is a plural word: the singular is El. The route word for El is the Sumerian ILU, meaning “the lofty ones” or “those who came from the sky”. Who were the Elohim? They were the Anunnaki – the so-called “gods” from the planet Nibiru. Anunnaki means “those who to Earth from Heaven came” – the same meaning as Elohim.
Yet even the attribution of the creation of the Asteroid Belt to the Elohim by the Genesis writers is outright deception. The Asteroid Belt was the culmination of the motions and impacts of the planet Nibiru during the Celestial Battle. It was Nibiru, through the fashioning of the Asteroid Belt, that separated the waters below from the waters above (“waters” is another name for space, which the ancients called the “Ocean of the Kaa”). The word translated “Firmament” is the Hebrew word “RAKIA”. It literally means “HAMMERED-OUT BRACELET”. This is exactly what the Sumerians called the Asteroid Belt. It is the Asteroid Belt that is referred to as Heaven (VERSE 8). Says Zechariah Sitchin: “Our Earth and Asteroid Belt are the ‘Heaven and Earth’ of both Mesopotamian (Sumerian) and biblical references, created when Tiamat was dismembered by the Celestial Lord (Nibiru)”.
So Day 2 in Genesis actually refers to the second phase of the Celestial Battle – when Nibiru returned and itself split Tiamat into two, with the one part of Tiamat assuming a new orbit and becoming the planet Earth and the other breaking into pieces to become the Asteroid Belt.
Genesis VERSE 9, properly translated, reads as follows: And the Elohim said, “Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together into one place and let the dry land appear. And it was so. And Elohim called the dry land “Earth” and the gathered-together water he called “Seas”. This is a description of the original Earth, which was made up of one huge land mass on the one side, the super-continent called Pangaea, and basically one huge sea on the other side, the Pacific Ocean. Pangaea began to drift apart 65 to 225 million years ago to form the seven separate continents we have today and give rise to smaller seas – Mediterranean, Caspian, Red Sea, and the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.
So Day 3 – its beginning – was the formation of Earth proper, an embryonic Earth severed from Tiamat to become master of its own destiny with its own orbit. Day 3 also marked the beginning of plant life. Since these “days” referred, in this context, to the periodic appearance of Nibiru – once every 3600 years – Nibiru had in its earlier collision with Tiamat seeded life forms on Earth and vegetation had therefore now luxuriantly sprouted (“it was good”).
In sum, the planet Nibiru, folks, is the “God” of the opening verses of Genesis. This was 4 billion years ago – before the Elohim, the Anunnaki, had appeared on Earth and before they themselves had even come into existence on their own planet.
BIRDS, THEN DINOSAURS AND NOT VICE VERSA
Scientists today believe Earthly elements came about in this order: first, there were volcanic eruptions, then the formation of the atmosphere, followed by the formation of oceans and finally the continents. Exactly, says the Enuma Elish, the so-called Epic of Creation as set down by the Sumerians 6,000 years ago.
Zechariah Sitchin: “The fifth tablet of the Enuma Elish described the gushing lava as ‘spittle’. This spittle, the text states, was ‘laying in layers’ as it poured forth. The phase of ‘making the cold’ and the ‘assembling of the water clouds’ are described; after that the ‘foundations’ of Earth were raised and the oceans were gathered.”
Experiments conducted at the Institute for Molecular and Cellular Evolution at the University of Miami deduced that algae (primitive nature forms that are neither plant, animal nor fungi but give off oxygen) were the first one-celled living creatures on Earth. Algae are still found in ponds and damp places today and they remain basically unchanged despite the passage of billions of years. For more complex life forms to emerge – that is the animal species – oxygen was needed. This oxygen became available after algae spread upon the dry land. But the oxygen that algae released was on its own poisonous at the time; so for new, emerging life-forms to utilise it, they needed an environment of rocks containing iron with which to “bind” the oxygen and therefore render it safe for uptake. Scientists say “as such banded-iron formations sank into ocean bottoms as sediments, the single-celled organisms evolved into multicelled ones in the water” and that was the beginning of maritime (that is, sea-borne) life. In other words, algae were crawling all over the Earth before maritime life emerged.
That is what the Bible also says. On Day 3, “God” said: Let the Earth bring forth green herbage, and grasses that yield seeds, and fruit trees that bear fruit of all kinds in accordance with the seeds thereof (GENESIS 1: 11).
At this stage, Genesis informs us, animal life had not yet appeared on Earth. For this to happen, “Earth had to set the patterns of the biological clocks that underlie the life cycles of all living forms on Earth,” says Zechariah Sitchin. “The Earth had to settle into its orbital and rotational patterns and be subjected to the effects of the Sun and the Moon, which were primarily manifested in the cycles of light and darkness”.
Modern science agrees with this sequence of phenomena. It explains why the writers of Genesis inserted a “celestial phase” (Day 4) between the evolutionary period of Day 3 (that is, the time when the earliest life forms appeared) and Day 5, when the “creatures” appeared. Day 4 partially reads thus: And God said: “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the Earth (GENESIS 1: 14-15).
This was not a chronological event as the Sun and moon existed long before plant life did. It was incorporated for purposes purely of science – to demonstrate the necessity for life-forms on Earth to be subjected to the biological and geographical effects of the Sun’s, the Moon’s, and the Earth’s rotational and revolutional cycles (e.g. we age at the rate we do because as Earthlings our DNA is influenced by celestial cycles unique to us; the Anunnaki on their planet Nibiru age at a different rate because their DNA programmes according to their own celestial cycles which are significantly different from ours.)
On Day 5, “God” said: Let the waters swarm with living creatures and let the aves fly above the Earth, under the dome of the sky. And God created the large reptilians, and all the living creatures that crawl and that swarmed in the waters, all in accordance with their kinds, and all the winged aves by their kinds. (GENESIS 1:20-21).
By “aves” is meant birds and by “large reptilians” is meant dinosaurs and lizards, creatures that began life in the sea and later took to land life before they suddenly became extinct about 65 million years ago in yet another cosmic cataclysm. Now, for a long time scientists held that birds evolved from dinosaurs. But in the later stages of the 19th century, skeletons of a creature called Archaeopteryx were discovered. The creature was found to be a fully developed bird by and large and it was found not to have evolved from dinosaurs but from an ancestor that predated the dinosaurs.
What scientists “discovered” in the 19th century was already recorded in Genesis courtesy of Sumerian records. Genesis lists birds before dinosaurs and not vice versa. It was not until dinosaurs became extinct that mammals, which began life in the sea, spread across the Earth. According to the Bible, this happened on Day 6. And God said: “Let the Earth bring forth living animals according to their kind; bovines and those that creep, and beasts of the land according to their kind” (GENESIS 1:24).
The “creation” engendered by “Lord Nibiru” was thus complete within one zodiacal year (about 26,000 Earth years). The days were not Earth days as your pastor will erroneously preach to you: they were shars, periods of 3600 Earth years for 3600 Earth years constitute one year on planet Nibiru. The six biblical days thus totalled 21,600 Earth years.
So what do we see? We see that science, the theory of evolution, and Genesis do not conflict: they are actually in agreement. But before modern science and before Genesis were the Sumerian texts. The Genesis writers researched from Sumerian records. Genesis is so scientifically accurate because the inconceivably advanced Anunnaki, who dictated to the Sumerians texts such as the Enuma Elish, had already figured out the course of evolution here on Earth. Sadly, modern science will never acknowledge the Anunnaki even when evidence of their having been on Earth is so glaring apparent. This Earth, My Brother…
NEXT WEEK: HOW NIBIRU SEEDED LIFE ON EARTH
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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 Tonightâ€
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.â€
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.â€
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.â€
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.â€
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 restaurantâ€, 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. Â 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. Â 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.â€
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 boxâ€.
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!’â€
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.