Anu�s First Visit to Earth
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Benson C Saili
THIS EARTH, MY BROTHER…
The Bible’s “Our Father Who Art In Heaven” comes down to Earth to assess gold production
When Enki and his 50-man team, the so-called Heroes, arrived on Earth from Nibiru half a million years ago, they came in search of gold. This was no treasure hunt: the metal, the rarest on their planet, was desperately needed to repair their perilously thinning atmosphere (it had other crucial uses as well, which we will discuss at an appropriate time). It was to be ground to powder and lofted into the upper reaches of the Nibiru atmosphere. The gold particles would serve as a kind of artificial screen: they would reflect the Sun’s harsh ultraviolet rays and therefore safeguard Nibiruans and the planet’s flora and fauna from the blights that were already in evidence.
That gold could indeed save such a purpose is borne out by Nasa, whose spacecraft windows are coated with a thin layer of gold to shield the astronauts from radiation. Solar radiation was particularly pronounced during that stage of Nibiru’s 3600-year circuit when it was in the ecliptic, that is, the region between Pluto and Mercury.
The Bible furnishes a veritable clue that gold was indeed uppermost in the minds of the Anunnaki (who it calls the Elohim but who Christians, Jews, and Arabs generally refer to as “God”) when they came to Earth. GENESIS 2:10-11 says, “A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. The name of the first was the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold and the gold of that land is good: there is also bdellium and onyx stone.” Gold is the first metal to be mentioned in the Bible. Says Zechariah Sitchin: “Gold, which we call the royal metal, was in fact the metal of the gods”, that is, the Anunnaki. When the Anunnaki settled in ancient Iraq, it was essential because of the gold they had detected in its hydrology.
Not long after their arrival in Eridu, their first settlement on Earth, Enki’s team set out to extract gold first from the marshes and when this proved inadequate from rivers and the surrounding seas.
The Heroes laboured for six “days” and on the seventh “day” analysed the yield. They turned up reasonable quantities of copper and iron but not gold, which was disappointingly paltry. Enki reckoned that if they had to obtain meaningful amounts of gold, they should resort to prospecting for “Tiamat’s golden veins” on the firm lands, Tiamat being the Solar System’s first, gold-endowed planet that Nibiru destroyed 4 billon years ago to bring about Earth and the Asteroid Belt in what Enki, the Anunnaki genius who fathomed this cosmic phenomenon, dubbed the Celestial Battle.
Accordingly, the Heroes assembled what they called a “Sky Chamber” from the parts they had brought with them in the Celestial Boat, or spaceship, and Enki and another pilot called Abgal took off to scour for gold deposits on the continents using high-tech scanning instruments.
Meanwhile, panic was taking hold on an incoming Nibiru. Enlil, the ruler of Nibiru, sent word to his father King Anu in Sirius complaining of the inordinate delays in the delivery of gold, and Anu in turn relayed this concern to Enki. Why had shipments of gold not commenced, he wondered to his step son. Enki replied that the gold accumulated thus far was insignificant in amount: sizeable quantities would only be possible after a shar – a year on Nibiru which is equivalent to 3600 Earth years. Anu said he was having none of that: whatever gold there was had to be dispatched to Nibiru forthwith as the gold dispersal technique that had been devised there had to be tested.
Enki accordingly gave instructions that Alalu’s spaceship be repaired for a return trip to Nibiru. As he inspected the spaceship, Enki discovered seven nuclear weapons on board Alalu had not used when he blasted his way through the Asteroid Belt. A pacifist to the core, Enki feared that such weapons could one day land in the wrong hands and he decided to stash them away in a secret place. So he and Abgal carefully loaded them into their Sky Chamber and off they flew to a far-flung area in today’s Africa, where they hid them in a cave. Enki was in future to rue this misplaced trust in Abgal
At any rate, Anzu, who was detailed by Enki to deliver the gold to Nibiru, discovered that the nuclear weapons were missing and wondered to King Alalu how he was going to negotiate his way through the Asteroid Belt without them. A perturbed Alalu confronted Enki about this and Enki did not prevaricate: he owned up forthwith, saying he hid the “weapons of terror” because even on Nibiru their use in any way, shape or form had been forbidden. Anzu then said without them there was no way he was going to brave the Asteroid stumbling block: he was not well versed in the employment of water thrusters, a method Enki had so spectacularly used to tame the turning Asteroid boulders. A gallant Abgal then stepped forward and volunteered to deliver the gold in Anzu’s stead.
A SHORT-LIVED HEALING
When Abgal set course for Nibiru, the planet was already on its way back to its perigee, the point where it was nearest to the Sun. He had no trouble with the Asteroid barricade.
As he neared the planet, Abgal was at once alarmed and entranced. He was entranced by the planet’s dazzling brilliance. “Ahead, in the darkness, in reddish hue glowed Nibiru, a sight to behold,” Enki relates of Abgal’s journey. At the same time, he was alarmed by the extent of Nibiru’s Ozone hole. “Nearing the planet, the breach in its atmosphere Abgal could see. A squeezing he felt in his heart.”
On Nibiru, Abgal was welcomed amid a lot of fanfare by Enlil and King Anu, who had travelled from Sirius just to witness this occasion. The little gold that he brought with him was expeditiously ground to powder and put to use, with very promising results. Relates Enki in Zechariah Sitchin’s The Lost Book of Enki: “With rockets was the gold dust heavenward carried, by crystals beams was it dispersed. Where there was a breach, now there was a healing.”
King Anu was so excited he dubbed gold “The Salvation of Nibiru”. But the euphoria was short-lived: as Nibiru neared its perigee, disaster again struck. “When Nibiru near the Sun came, the golden dust was by its rays disturbed; the healing in the atmosphere was dwindled, the breach to its bigness returned.” The Ozone hole had rebounded. It was back to square one. A disillusioned and frantic Anu hurriedly dispatched Abgal back to Earth to collect more gold. Accompanying him was co-pilot Nungal and 50 other Heroes to reinforce the gold extraction effort.
The process of obtaining alluvial gold was notoriously slow: 3600 years since the last delivery, Enki and his team hadn’t made much headway. The gold yields remained a pittance. The quest for land ores had yet to bear fruit either. Enki and King Alalu pondered endlessly thus: “If Earth the head of Tiamat was in the Celestial Battle cut off, where was the neck, where were the golden veins cut asunder? Where were the golden veins from Earth’s innards protruding?”
The gold ingots that Abgal took to Nibiru again were minuscule: they could not provide a sustainable solution to Nibiru’s Ozone hole problem. Enki continued to criss-cross the Earth in his sky chamber and at long last the search registered a stunning success: he happened upon rich deposits of gold in modern-day Zimbabwe. The potential was so breathtaking Enki characterised the place as the “Birthplace of Gold”.
The need to extract gold from the sea was now redundant. But the terrestrial gold was deep into “the bowels of the Earth” and therefore required suitable underground mining equipment.
An ecstatic King Anu, when he got word of this development, convened a special assembly to discuss the next course of action. The assembly decided that there was need to first ascertain the size of the deposits before a longterm strategy was devised. Enki would also need executive assistance in the event that large-scale mining became inevitable and the best fit for the purpose was Enlil. Besides being ruler of Nibiru (on behalf of the Sirian-Orion monarch) and Crown Prince to the Sirian-Orion throne, Enlil was once a general in the Sirian Air Force, which encompassed the cosmic army, and had demonstrable credentials as an able administrator. Meanwhile, Anu decided to base himself on Nibiru till the Ozone hole problem was resolved.
Enlil arrived on Earth in the 7th Shar after Alalu did, that is, after Alalu had been King of Earth for 25,200 Earth years. Enki wasted no time in taking him to the southern part of Africa, which Enki had named the ABZU. Abzu meant a “primeval deep source”, in this context a source of metal ore or simply Mineral Belt.
Having established that gold did indeed abound in the Abzu, Enlil now suggested to Enki and Alalu that a permanent settlement be established on Earth as more Anunnaki would be needed in the arduous and painstaking mining process. A spaceport had to be built as well to handle the higher traffic of spaceships carrying loads of gold to Nibiru. What this entailed was that both Enki and Enlil would now be based on Earth practically indefinitely. Now, the moot point was this: who would be in charge of the base camp in Eridu and the new operations thereof and who would be in charge of the mining operations in the Abzu?
Regrettably, King of Earth Alalu fell flat in allotting responsibilities to the two brothers, both of whom had colossal egos. Enlil then proposed that King Anu come to Earth and help break the impasse, to which King Alalu reluctantly agreed. It meant the onset of mining activities would have to wait for another shar as at the time Nibiru had left the perigee and was on its way back to its apogee.
Meanwhile, Enki had long divided an Earthly year into twelve months, with each month comprising of four weeks of 7 days each. He was also busy studying the Earth’s evening skies to establish the periodicity of peculiar star patterns. So far, he had already deduced that there was a different night sky backdrop – called a constellation – roughly every 2160 years. It was just a matter of time before he came up with a definitive Zodiac pattern that would stand the test of time.
THE RESENTFUL “ZU”
King Anu set off from Nibiru to Earth with a 50-man entourage that included Chief Pilot Nungal and a VIP royal called Kumarbi. Who was Kumarbi?
As with most Anunnaki names that we encounter in Sumerian records, Kumarbi was a title and not an original name. The Sirian-Orion armed forces had two major branches. First, there was the cosmic branch, the one that engaged in interplanetary warfare and conquests. Its troops were known as “IKU” Warriors. Then there was the Warrior Ground Forces. These were known as the “BEH”. Collectively, the Iku and Beh were known as the “DAK” or “TAK”, meaning the “Teeth”. They were the teeth of the “RRR”, as the Wolfen race of Sirius were called by virtue of the inborn throaty growl (like that of a dog or lion) in their voice.
Now, when Alalu fled from Sirius to Earth, he had brought along with him his grandson ALALGAR. Alalgar was a fiercely ambitious young Anunnaki, even more so than his grandfather. The overthrow of Alalu by Anu remained a sore point with Alalgar; as such, his lifelong goal was to reclaim the Sirian throne on behalf of the House of Alalu. To prepare for such an eventuality, he underwent thorough Iku and Beh training here on Earth and the surrounding space (contrary to what Zechariah Sitchin would have you believe, Alalu had fled with a sizeable military arsenal and following when he came to Earth and even warred against the Native Reptilians of Earth, a subject we shall dwell upon in detail soon.)
Having completed the training, Alalgar quickly rose through the military ranks. First, he attained to the second highest title, IKU-MAR-BEH, which meant “Great One of the Iku and Beh”. In the Sumerian writings, this is abbreviated to “KUMARBI”. Finally, he was conferred the highest commission, equivalent to what we call Generalissimo today, or Joint Chiefs Chairman in the US armed forces. This title was “ZU”. It literally meant “Supreme Master” (that is, of the combined Anunnaki armed forces of Earth). In our case, we will be referring to him simply as Kumarbi but bear in mind that his original name was Alalgar. Kumarbi would, for reasons we shall set out soon, become known as “The Evil Zu”.
When King Anu heard of the strides Kumarbi was making in the Buida (our Solar System) military, he was alarmed. His immediate reaction was to deploy his own elite Iku warrior astronauts throughout Buida, who were known as the “IKIKI”, or “IGIGI” in some spellings. Igigi meant “Those Who Watch” or “Search” (that is, watching and searching from a space station). The Igigi were at once astronauts and fighter pilots. Their main brief was to watch on developments on planet Earth with an eye particularly on Kumarbi. The Igigi were headed by Marduk, Enki’s firstborn son who was second in line to the Sirian-Orion throne after Enlil.
KUMARBI SUPPLANTS ENLIL
The reports Marduk sent to Anu agitated the Sirian-Orion King. It came to light that Kumarbi was scheming to have Earth completely secede from the Sirian-Orion Empire, when Alalu ruled it as a mere viceroy, that is, on behalf of the Sirian-Orion monarch.
In order to forestall such a scenario, Anu hit upon an idea. He decided to make Kumarbi his Cup-Bearer. This was a very sensitive move as it meant Kumarbi was now the official heir to the Sirian-Orion throne, leapfrogging Enlil. But Anu thought sacrificing Enlil was by far a lower price to pay in the interests of peace and considering that as the designated Living Genetic Library and a hugely resource-endowed planet, Earth was the most precious planet in the Milky Way Galaxy.
And so it was that Kumarbi was installed as Cup-Bearer to the Sirian-Orion monarch and was to be based on the Wolfen planet in Sirius. Kumarbi, however, remained unabashedly resentful of Anu: it still rankled with him that his grandfather’s reign was interrupted by a power-hungry Anu, who he would always regard as a usurper. “Anu could not withstand the gaze of Kumarbi’s eyes”, relates Enki.
Because he was distrustful of Kumarbi, Anu, when he journeyed to Earth, brought him along just in case he suddenly got to entertain subversive ideas in the King’s absence. Even then, Anu made sure Alalu and his grandson did not get the slightest chance to confer by leaving Kumarbi on the space platform orbiting the Earth. The gesture irked both grandfather and grandson in no small measure.
Anu was as much on a crisis-defusing mission as he was on a prospecting mission. Before setting a direct course for Earth, he first circled the Moon to sniff for signs of gold deposits there. Several billions of Earth years before, both Earth and the Moon, named Kingu by the Anunnaki, were part of a planet called Tiamat that existed between Mars and Jupiter, with Kingu as a moon of Tiamat. It therefore followed that if Earth contained gold, then Kingu possibly did to.
Emerging from the watercourse that abutted Eridu, King Anu was first greeted by Enki, which was anomalous and a sign of simmering tension between Alalu and Anu. Anu should ideally have been welcomed by Earth’s King Alalu but the latter was chafed when he could not spot his grandson Kumarbi among Anu’s entourage. It was only after Enki and Enlil had greeted their father that Alalu did likewise but with his body language plainly bespeaking underlying rancour.
NEXT WEEK: “OUR FATHER” LOSES HIS “BALL”!
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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!
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“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.