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Thursday, 18 April 2024

Adam and Eve Prove Sterile

Columns

Benson C Saili

THIS EARTH, MY BROTHER            

Enki flogs his mind to get to bottom of dilemma

Considering that Adam was carried in Ninmah’s womb, it followed that his female counterpart had to be carried in the womb of a royal too, not an ordinary Anunnaki like any of the Birth Mothers. Who would it be this time around? Enki this time excused his sister; instead, he tipped his wife Ninki (maiden name Damkina) to bear the burden, of course subject to her consent.

Ninki did not need overmuch persuasion as her sister-in-law had been through the process without any detriment to her health. It was not Ningishzidda, though, who transplanted the tiny foetus into Ninki’s womb; that was taboo given that she was his step-mother. It had to be Enki himself. 

Ninki was delivered in the tenth month, by Caesarian section. As per plan, the offspring was a girl. She was as healthy and adorable as Adam. However, there was a marked difference in their skin tones: the girl was nearly as light-skinned as the Anunnaki (what we would call a “coloured” today), whereas Adam was of a comparatively darker hue.

Clearly, in the gene tinkering process, Enki had Ningishzidda substantially tone down on the dark pigment melanin as he intended the female Earthling to be even more visually attractive. Enki’s gesture was also motivated, apparently, by some future scheme of his that he kept close to his chest. 

As with Ninmah in the case of Adam, Ninti had discretion to confer a name on the newly born girl. She suggested the name Tiamat. “Tiamat let her name be,” Ninti said. “Like the planet of old of which the Earth and the Moon were fashioned, let her be called.”

The creation of Tiamat, the biblical Eve, thus, was a symbolic commemoration of  the Celestial Battle that took place 4 billion years ago, when a primeval Nibiru smashed into a watery planet called Tiamat – which was located between Mars and Jupiter – to split it into Earth and the Asteroid Belt. One of Tiamat’s eleven satellites, Kingu, was dragged along to become our Moon. We dwelt on this subject earlier in the Earth Chronicles.

Initially, female Earthlings were to be mass-produced from Eve’s DNA  template, just as male Earthlings were  mass-produced from Adam’s DNA  template, that is,  using seven new Birth Mothers. Indeed, a year later, the Birth Mothers were clutching seven healthy baby girls.

Let us at this juncture turn to the Bible to cross-check these happenings.  We will begin with GENESIS 5:1-2. Summarising the creation of  man by God, the two scriptures read as follows: Verse 1When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Verse 2He (God)  created them male and female and blessed them.

And when they were created he called them ‘man’.  Do you see some seeming contradiction? Verse 1 talks about  “man”, but in Verse 2, man has become “male and female”. The contradiction arises only in the distorted English translation. In the Hebrew original, there is no contradiction at all.

A much more direct and minimally paraphrased  translation from Hebrew should read something like this: Verse 1When the Elohim (the royal Anunnaki) created the first Earthling, they made him in their own image and likeness and blessed him. Verse 2Then the Elohim  created more male  Earthlings and in due course  female Earthlings.

The Earthlings were called Adamites.  The Elohim are the Anunnaki leadership. But this also is too much of a generalisation:  as we saw in earlier pieces, it was Enki who said “Let us make man in our own image and likeness” (GENESIS 1:26), and as we have already demonstrated, it was Enki, assisted by his step-sister Ninmah and his genius son Ningishzidda,  who created both Adam and Eve.

Inevitably, it is Enki who pronounced blessings  on Adam and Eve. We have also explained that the  name Adam fundamentally means Earthling. It was both a name of the individual Adam, the first  viable Earthling,  as well as that of mankind in general.  Human beings are Adamites.

Sequentially, the creation of Earthlings first takes place in GENESIS 1:27, which reads, “So God (the Elohim, that is, Enki, Ningishzidda, and Ninmah) created man (Adam, the first viable human being) in his          (their) own image; in the image of God (the Elohim) he (Enki) created him (Adam); male and female he created them ( Adam and Eve)”.

The “male and female” statement refers to the stage when Birth Mothers alternated in groups of seven to  produce males patterned after Adam, and when they again alternated in groups of seven to produce females patterned after Eve. So the Genesis account is far from contradictory folks, at least in this context.    

 

THE PROTOTYPES ON SHOW AT ERIDU

 

Eve, like Adam, was to be preserved. Her DNA was to be used to produce female Earthlings, just as Adam’s DNA would be used to produce male Earthlings. It was actually decided by Enki that Eve join Adam at Eridu, his base in the Edin in Mesopotamia. This was all the more apt because Enlil, who greatly distrusted Enki, personally wanted to keep a close watch on the couple.

In the old Avestan language, a sister tongue to the Vedic Sanskrit of India, the Edin was referred to as Pairi Daize (from pairi [around]  and diz [to make, form, build]). A  Pairi Daize was therefore something of a castle – a  fortified, walled  building or groups of building  with watch towers for maximum vigil (the Setswana term Pharadisa, meaning “securely watched over”, drives the point crisply home).

Parts of the Edin were as fortified and as tightly guarded because, first, they housed the royal Anunnaki (the “gods”), and second,  they harboured the highly prized shems, or rocket ships. But the Edin  was more than that. It had an orchard, a zoo, a royal park, acres of cultivated land, pastoral animals, a sprawl of lush green lawns,  and tracts of pastureland.

It is from Pairi Daize  we get the English word Paradise. In time, Paradise would assume several derivative meanings, including    idyllic place, utopia, Heaven,  dwelling place of God, etc.

In the ethereally beautiful Edin, the two prototypes  roamed about freely and happily, with a conducive cage as their lodging. Note that Adam and Eve were not as civilised as we are; they were probably only half so. They could talk and take instructions all right, but they still retained a strong animal persona.

Thus, they went about naked without a care in the world, prancing about with some corralled animals and gorging themselves on fruits and wild roots, and the occasional roasted meat.  When the Bible talks of the “Garden of Eden”, it is actually referring to this orchard: it was not Eden (the Edin ) itself,  but it was in a section of the Edin, the Anunnaki’s confederate of city states established in modern-day southern Iraq.

 

ENKI’S CREATION FAIL TO REPRODUCE

 

Meanwhile, at the Bit Shiimti in East Africa, Ningishzidda kept constant vigil over the bunch of other Earthlings begotten through the Birth Mothers. They too had been set up in cages amongst the surrounding woods because on several occasions when they were allowed a bit of freedom, they stole away into the jungles, their animal instincts being rather pronounced.

As they neared puberty, Ningishzidda observed them day and night. When he saw that they were now copulating, he breathed a sigh of glee: soon kids would be on the way and soon the Anunnaki miners would be headed back to Nibiru. These Lulus, however, were not reproducing. What had gone wrong?

Ningishzidda, who was a reputed DNA expert, sought his father’s take and after pondering the matter deeply, Enki understood why! The Lulus were hybrids: they were a combination of two species – the Anunnaki, who were humanoids, and Ape-Woman (Homo Erectus), who was an animal. “By two kinds combined, a curse has been created!” Enki realised.

How true! Even in our modern-day, we know that hybrids do not innately reproduce: they can only do so after painstaking genetic re-engineering by  scientists.  The best example is a mule – a cross between a male donkey and a female horse. Mules don’t produce young in that they are the result of two different species.

Enki suggested that they study the DNA of Adam and Eve much more profoundly this time. This they did in a laboratory at Shurrupak, the Edin city-state under Ninmah’s charge. Enki and Ninmah watched as Ningishzidda dissected the DNA of the two prototypes.

“The essences (DNA) of Adamu and Tiamat were contemplated,” Enki relates in his memoir. “With the life essence of Anunnaki males and females they were compared. Like 22 branches on a Tree of Life were the essences. Their bits were comparable, the images and likenesses they properly determined.

Twenty-two they were in number; the ability to procreate they did not include! Another two bits of the essence in the Anunnaki present Ningishzidda showed. One male, one female; without them there was no procreating, so he was explaining. In the moulds of Adam and Tiamat, in the combining they were not included!”

Now,  the information I’m imparting to you originally came from clay tablets inscribed 6000 years ago by the Sumerians. The Sumerians, My Brother, knew  6000 years ago  about man’s genetic blueprint called DNA. They knew that DNA was made up of two entwined strands.

They knew the number of chromosomes (bits)  in each sex cell. Yet modern science only came to know about the existence of DNA in the second half of the 20th century. Who endowed the Sumerians with this kind of knowledge? It was the Anunnaki of course, as Enki’s writings clearly confirm. And we say the ancients were unlettered, benighted dunderheads! This Earth, My Brother…     

ENKI WAS TREE OF KNOWLEDGE

 

In Genesis, the first book of the Hebrew Bible, commonly known as the Old Testament, we are told that the Garden of Eden had two trees that stood at its centre. They were the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The Christian clergy has taken this characterisation literally: they portray them as real, fruit-bearing  trees indeed.

That is self-deluding. The Trees were no trees at all: they were images of something much more profound (Note, though, that there did exist a “plant of life”, which Ninmah had brought from Nibiru, but this does not apply in the Eden context).

Let us first put into  perspective, once again,  exactly where Adam and Eve were based. They were in the broader, mid-eastern  region called the Edin or Eden as per Genesis. The Edin was made up of several city-states, 7 in all. Although Enlil, the Bible’s primary  Jehovah/Yahweh, was the governor-general of the Edin, each of the 7 city-states had its own overseer.

Only Nippur, the spaceport, was directly overseen by Enlil: the remaining six city-states had its own direct overseer. Eridu, for instance, was under the rulership of Enki, notwithstanding the fact that he spent most of his time in the Abzu, Africa. It was on the outskirts of Eridu, in an orchard surrounded by a zoo, that Adam and Eve lived.  

We will not address ourselves to the Tree of Life at this stage: we will do so in due course. At this juncture, we will restrict ourselves to the Tree of Knowledge. As the Anunnaki’s greatest scientist and greatest intellect, Enki was dubbed the God of Knowledge.

And as a master geneticist, he was synonymous with DNA, which was figuratively referred to as the  Tree of Knowledge (that is, knowledge related to programming life). Thus the Tree of Knowledge that stood in the centre of the Garden of Eden denoted Enki. Enki and Enlil were the central figures of the Edin. In particular, Enki, being  the head of Eridu, was the city-state’s central figure.  Please bear that in mind.

 

THE CASE OF THE MISSING CHROMOSOME

 

When Enki said he wanted to create a primitive worker (Lulu Amelu) and Enlil was finally  obligated to lend his blessings to the project by King Anu, “Our Father Who Art In Heaven”,   he did so subject to several preconditions. Although we have outlined these in an earlier piece, we will here restate a few.

The first precondition was that the primitive worker had to be intellectually inferior to the Anunnaki, basically primitive: it was enough that he was able to handle tools and follow simple instructions. The second was that he had to be much smaller in build to underline the point that he was indeed inferior and to  prevent him from harbouring delusions of either equality or grandeur.

The third was that  he should not have the same lifespan as the Anunnaki. If the Anunnaki  were to embed in him the belief that they were gods, his lifespan had to be  only a fraction theirs (the Anunnaki could live up to a million Earth years).  Finally, Enlil insisted that the worker race was not to reproduce on their own:  they were to arise only through the part-natural, part-artificial  process of cloning.

Whilst Enki did undertake to abide by Enlil’s terms, by way of DNA manipulation, that is, he secretly reserved the right to relax some of them. Thus the efforts to  get Adam and Eve to reproduce were done without the knowledge and sanction of Enlil. As hinted above, one reason Adam and Eve were transferred to Eridu was in order for  Enlil to keep tabs on them just in case something  untoward developed.   

Every time living things reproduce, DNA is copied so that basic characteristics are passed on. We look  or behave more or less like our parents, for instance, because we carry their DNA. DNA is innately  dynamic: it improves itself with the passage of time although it can also degenerate.

A million or so years down the line, mankind will be much bigger and taller than he is today and better adapted to Earth’s  environment. Our brain capacity will also be vastly  improved.  We will be more resistant to diseases to which we are all too susceptible today.

Let us now go back to the laboratory at Shurrupak, where Enki, Ningishzidda, and Ninmah were reviewing Adam and Eve’s DNA after noticing that the Lulus  at their East African-based R&D facility, the Bit Shiimti, were not producing  kids. Examining the sex cell DNA and comparing it with that of the Anunnaki, Ningishzidda noted that the two were not identical.

Anunnaki sex cell DNA contained 23 chromosomes, whereas the Lulu’s  sex cell DNA had 22 chromosomes (DNA is made up of pieces called chromosomes and each chromosome has thousands of genes. An ordinary cell in mankind has 23 pairs of chromosomes, or 46 in total.

But the sex cells, that is, the sperm and ovum,  carry only half that number so that when fertilisation takes place, the combination of 23 chromosomes each from a male and a female restores the total to 46). Why were the  numbers different? Obviously this was the result of an oversight in the genetic tinkering by hands-on man Ningishzidda, which he did admit, but scientifically how can that be explained?

As hinted above, Mankind (Adam and Eve) was not a species. He was a hybrid, a mixture of two different species. These two species were the Anunnaki and Ape-Woman, Homo Erectus. Because mankind was a hybrid, he did not have the same number of chromosomes as Ape Woman nor did he have the same number of chromosomes as the Anunnaki.

Every species has a distinct number of chromosomes. A dog has 78, for instance. The Anunnaki had 23 sex chromosomes and Ape-Woman in all probability had 24 (our closest cousins as primates, the chimpanzees, have 24). Mankind had 22.

Hence, were Adam and Eve  to mate, fertilisation would not taken place because the absence of the 23rd and 24th chromosome  meant there wasn’t a genetic definition in their genome of exactly what to produce – whether an Anunnaki embryo or a Homo Erectus embryo.  The reproductive slot was therefore blank.  

Enki suggested to Ningishzidda that an operation be conducted both on the two Earthlings and two opposite-sex Anunnaki which would introduce the 23rd chromosome into the Earthlings’ gene pool. In males,  the 23rd sex chromosome can take the form of either X or Y, something chosen at random by nature.

In females, the 23rd sex chromosome is always an  X. What this meant was that Enki had to on-pass his 23rd sperm chromosome to Adam and Ninmah had to on-pass her 23rd  egg chromosome to Eve. Exactly how was this to be done? 

NEXT WEEK: CAN ENKI SOLVE THE RIDDLE?

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GONE FISHING

28th March 2023

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”

28th March 2023

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

28th March 2023

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.

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