Eve�s Strategic Infidelity
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Benson C Saili
THIS EARTH, MY BROTHER
Adapa’s wife sires child with father/father-in-law Enki in rare duo-parent conception
The banquet that was thrown for Adapa, the visiting young Earthling, by King Anu in the plush Nibiru palace turned out to be an anti-climax. For when Adapa was presented with the Bread of Life and the Water of Life, he dismissed them outright.
Now, to Nibiruians, the Bread of Life and the Water of Life were nothing special. They were part of their daily sustenance. But unlike our day-to-day food regimen on Earth, these were rich with Ormus, the white powder of gold also known as manna or shewbread in the Bible.
On Nibiru, they had what they called the “Semen of the Father”. This was simply Ormus which fell down on the ground as a constituent of rain. The Ormus-rich rain was the result of gold particles that were suspended higher up in the Nibiru atmosphere both to seal the ozone hole and to lend vigour and vitality to overall Anunnaki health.
When this golden rain bathed the plants and vegetation and soaked the ground, they too became Ormus-rich. By the same token, animals that chewed on the Ormus-rich leaves and grass became Ormus-rich too, such that when the Nibiriuans consumed the crops, fruits and animal meat; drank beverages that were made from fruits; or took herbal products as daily supplements, they assimilated a lot of Ormus in their body tissues.
This not only endued them with very sound health but lent them extraordinarily lengthy lifespans and made them grow considerably taller, up to at least 8 feet for men and 7 feet for women. Ormus also gave them great intellectual capacity, extrasensory perception, and metaphysical insight.
To an Earthling, however, the Ormus-rich bread and drink that were of Nibiru origin would be radically transforming on many levels. It would be like becoming a brand new man altogether, particularly for a youngster like Adapa. Thus when Adapa turned down the sacraments that were offered him, King Anu was not only mystified: he was embarrassed. How could the youngster decline such supremely efficacious food items and from a King for that matter?
Suspecting that it was simply one of those puerile antics, the King kindly and tenaciously endeavoured to cajole Adapa. “Come now, Adapa,” he pleaded. “Why did you neither eat nor drink, our hospitality rejected?” It seemed Adapa did not want to appear as if he had affronted the King of his own accord. That would have given rise to a very distorted view of Earthlings as a whole. So he decided to come clean on the cause of his seemingly outlandish conduct. “My master the lord Enki commanded me: bread do not eat, the elixir do not drink!” he candidly disclosed.
King Anu was taken even further aback. Why did Enki advise the young Earthling as such? Was he anti-Earthling, which would be odd considering that he was their very creator? Why couldn’t he allow at least one Earthling to enjoy the longevity of the Anunnaki and therefore assume monarchic status once the gold mission was over?
Turning to his vizier Ilabrat, Dumuzi, and Ningishzidda respectively, he sought to extract a fitting rationale. The trio said they too were nonplussed. Ningishzidda, however, now revealed that he had a parcel for the King that could provide the answer to the conundrum at hand. Keen to know what the little parcel contained, the King promptly rose and announced a time-out, at which point he proceeded into his private chamber to study it.
ADAPA COMMISSIONED INTO AGRARIAN PURSUITS
The parcel Ningishzidda had delivered to King Anu on behalf of Enki was an encrypted data stick. In it, Enki owned up as to who Adapa exactly was. He made known to his step-father that Adapa was not his servant as such but a biological son of his he had sired with an Earthling woman and that he was actually one of two such siblings, the other one being a daughter.
He also bid the King not to avail Ormus to Adapa but to let him remain “mortal” so that he identified more with his fellow Earthlings than the Anunnaki. His offspring’s role would be to grow food and rear proteinaceous animals to succour the Anunnaki contingent on Earth. It was Adapa who as the first civilised Earthling was going to teach fellow mankind the art of both arable and pastoral farming.
Though the message did not exactly astound the King given Enki’s sordid reputation as a serial philanderer, he was disappointed. He did not expect the staggeringly wise man that was Enki to breach a cosmic law which forbade the Anunnaki to indulge in sexual relations with other races. Summoning Ningishzidda to his private chamber, the palpably disillusioned King asked him whether he was aware Adapa was his brother. Ningishzidda said he had long established that was so after secretly subjecting Adapa to a DNA test.
Having learnt of the urgency with which Adapa was wanted on Earth from Enki, King Anu decided he was to return to Earth forthwith, accompanied by Ningishzidda, with a specific commission in heed of Enki’s petition. “To be of civilised mankind, a progenitor your destiny shall be,” Anu said to Adapa. “Let your offspring there on Earth fields till and in meadows shepherd.”
Ningishzidda too was given his own dedicated commission. He was to be the spiritual teacher of Adapa’s offspring, a lifelong mandate he would fulfil with distinction. Dumuzi, meanwhile, would remain on Nibiru for a full shar, a year on Nibiru which was equivalent to 3600 Earth years, to master the art of agronomy.
Meanwhile, Adapa was provided a special garment to wear, which befitted a king. He was also given a special oil, with which he straightaway anointed himself as per Enki’s advance instructions. The unction and garlanding officially designated him as Earth’s first Sanga-Lugal, meaning Priest-King. This is Melchizedek in Hebrew. Not only was he going to start a new kingly line on Earth but he was going to institute a new line of priests.
Later in the day, Ningishzidda and Adapa were escorted to the “place of chariots”, the interplanetary spaceport, and soon were headed back to Earth. They were carrying with them cereal seeds and breeder ewes. As the spaceship coursed through the inky space, Ningishzidda administered to his little half-brother lessons on the dynamics of cosmic bodies, more so those of the Solar System.
HISTORY’S FIRST SOLOMON
Enki was at once surprised and overjoyed that Adapa had returned to Earth way sooner than expected. He commended the little boy for standing his ground before the great King and for refusing to eat and imbibe the Ormus aliment. On his part, Adapa was gleeful that Enki had turned out to be both his master and dad. Father and son thus embraced, with Titi, Adapa’s half sister, joining them in a rather sentimental posture.
Ningishzidda advised his father that the seniormost members of the Anunnaki pantheon be told of what transpired on Nibiru. Enki agreed and soon Enlil and Ninmah were on their way to Eridu. Ninmah made no fuss about Enki’s fathering of Adapa and Titi. Enki’s wife Ninki also made light of the matter as she was already emotionally attached to the two kids having brought them up like her own kids. It was Enlil who was apoplectic with rage.
“You are defiling our race,” he thundered. “And you are setting a very bad precedent which rank and file Anunnaki would now want to emulate. You know how few Anunnaki women are here on Earth. I want this to remain a closely guarded secret. Not even your own grown children should know about it other than Zidda and Dumuzi. Do you hear me?” And he stormed out of the meeting.
One certain thing about rumour is that it spreads very quickly in the manner of a wildfire and so Marduk soon got wind of these new developments. In the event, he approached his father and Ningishzidda, who had now taken over Enki as their pedagogic instructor, to seek clarity. He was told it was all the work of busybodies: Adapa and Titi were no more than Enki’s pupils and adopted children.
Before he was installed as Priest-King at Eridu, Enki’s cult centre, Adapa first had to be groomed for the task, particularly that he was still a youngster. Accordingly, when he attained adulthood, Enki installed him as Chief of Staff in his household. His duties were to “supervise the bakers, assure water supplies, oversee the fishing for Eridu, and tend to the offerings and prescribed rites … Daily he attended the sanctuary of Eridu.”
Meanwhile, Ningishzidda was tutoring him in “all manner of knowledge” with a view to transform him into the very “model of a man”. Soon he had entered the annals of Earth as the first Wisest Man on record – the first Solomon. An adage was even coined which said, “as wise as Adapa” to describe somebody phenomenally intelligent.
Upon attaining 21 years of age, Adapa was officially crowned as Priest-King. According to the WB-62 pre-diluvial king list (where he appears as En-Me-Lu-Anna, meaning “Enki’s Man of Heaven”, an epithet that commemorated his celestial journey to Nibiru), he ruled for 21,600 years. The Berossus list accords him a reign of 36,000 years.
As Priest-King, Adapa’s duties included the interpretation of the will of the Anunnaki; the representation of Earthlings before the Anunnaki; the administration of justice as well as the entire realm; and supervision of the temple clergy, the term temple simply meaning the abode of Enki and not a house of worship as at the time there was no such thing.
Like dad Enki, Adapa was a fanatical seafarer. He loved to traverse the seas in his boat from shore to shore. A daredevil, he took great delight in braving mighty tempests, so that more often than not he was sent adrift. Thankfully, the Anunnaki’s excellent wireless communications which covered every inch of the planet as well as excellent sky craft made it easy to be reached when one beamed a distress call.
ADAPA MARRIES A SHE-DEVIL
Although Enlil looked down on Adapa by virtue of his being a Lulu, he simply had to recognise him for what he was. King Anu had “Anu-nointed” him as the first civilised human King. He was the designated progenitor of a bloodline that would rule Earth forever. This bloodline would over time come to be known as the Sangreal, meaning “Blood Royal” – the now famous Holy Grail lore which in our day was popularised by Dan Brown in his blockbuster fact-based novel titled The Da Vinci Code. It is this same bloodline that spawned Jesus and today’s leading Western monarchs.
Since Adapa was an Enkite, the Enlilites wanted a genetic stake in the emerging bloodline. The two clans therefore held a meeting to decide on this critical matter. What the Enlilites proposed was that Adapa must marry an Enlilite to even the scores. This was a moot point as Enki had already chosen a spouse for Adapa.
This was Titi, Enki’s daughter with the other Earthling woman. Enki wanted the bloodline to be unilaterally Enkite but the Enlilites were adamant that an Enlilite had to be part of the equation. When a neutral Ninmah was asked to break the ice, she suggested that in order to content either party, Adapa should marry two women: Titi and another woman who had Enlilite blood in her even if that would entail relaxing the cosmic clause that forbade cross-racial marriages. Albeit, Titi would be the junior wife whereas this other woman would be the senior spouse.
Following a very heated debate which involved the input of Adapa himself, it was a deal: Adapa was to take a woman with Enlilite blood as his senior wife. And the woman chosen in this regard was Lilitu. Lilitu was related to both Enki and Enlil: she was the daughter of Nergal, Enki’s son, and his wife Ereshkigal, Enlil’s granddaughter.
Initially, Lilitu was not happy. Being a full Anunnaki and therefore a “goddess”, she thought Adapa, a half-human, half-Anunnaki, or “demi-god”, was beneath her notwithstanding his incandescent virtues and qualities. She made it clear that the man she would have loved to marry was Enki himself, who she had always admired since childhood. However, she was finally prevailed upon and reluctantly agreed to be Adapa’s main spouse.
Since Lilitu was geneologically senior to Titi, the book of Genesis’s other Eve, it meant the heir to Adapa would come from her as per the Anunnaki monarchical merit, which ran through the female line as opposed to the male line. Such a scenario proved to be a perpetual nightmare to Titi-Eve, who would have loved her own son with Adapa to be the heir.
Now, whereas Adapa’s marital relationship to Titi-Eve was a joyous one, that with Lilitu was hell. Lilitu was wayward and insubordinate as a wife. Not only did she defy Adapa at will but was reluctant to give him a heir. In the Adapa household, the workers were in dread of her. She was always screaming and swearing at them, calling them all sorts of demeaning names. This mean streak in her largely stemmed from Enlilite genes than the typically beneficent Enkite genes. The “wicked queen” Jezebel pales in comparison with Lilitu.
TWINS WHO HAD TWO FATHERS!
Although Titi-Eve was aware that being a second-fiddle wife her son would never inherit, she wasn’t resigned to such a fate, which was forcefully decreed on her. She was determined to upend it by foul or crook. She was sworn that her son must be heir come what may. But exactly how was that to be attained?
Having pondered the matter over, Titi-Eve and her Earthling mother came up with a most ingenious strategy. This strategy revolved around her own father/father-in-law Enki. Titi-Eve reckoned that if she were to sleep with Enki and produce a son, that son would take precedence over Lilitu’s in the succession stakes if Lilitu happened to bear girls only or if she stood by her volition not to give Adapa a child at all.
Titi-Eve was a stunning beauty and Enki was hopelessly weak where women were concerned. It therefore goes without saying that sexual relations between the two were a natural. It did not take long before Titi-Eve became pregnant. The pregnancy was an interesting one. Titi-Eve gave birth to two boys who were fraternal and not identical twins.
Furthermore, the twins had distinctly different skin tones and other features. The boy who arrived first was much lighter than the second one. Naturally, Adapa, who was no dupe, knew something was amiss. He asked Ningishzidda to conduct a DNA test on the two boys.
Ningishzidda found that whereas the younger one was Adapa’s son, the older one was not. Adapa straight-off confronted his wife and she was quick to own up: the older son was Enki’s. What had happened was that when Titi-Eve ovulated, she produced two eggs. During the three days the eggs were in her tubes, she slept with both Adapa and Enki in succession. The two eggs were therefore fertilised by two sperm cells coming from two different men, something that happens only once in a million times.
Titi-Eve’s plea to her husband was that she did so for purely political reasons: she wanted a son who would inherit after him all other things being equal. Since Adapa had the tender virtues of his father Enki, he did not begrudge his wife but simply made bygones be bygones.
As per the culture of the day, it was Titi-Eve who reserved the right to name the kids. The older twin she named Ka-En, meaning “One begotten of the Lord”. This is the biblical Cain. He was so named because his biological father was Lord Enki. The Bible itself actually attests to that.
GENESIS 4:1 as properly translated in the King James corpus quotes Eve as exclaiming of baby Cain that, “I have gotten a man from the Lord”, that is, she had given birth to a son fathered by Enki. The Midrash, a Jewish traditional commentary on the Bible, also emphasises the point that Cain was the son of Enki and not Adapa/Adam.
The younger son Titi-Eve named as Aba-El, meaning, “He whose father is of the Lord”. This is the biblical Abel. Why was he so named? Well, the person who was “of the Lord” in this regard was Adapa. Remember, Adapa did have Anunnaki blood in him as he was the son of Enki but he was not Anunnaki himself. Although the term “El” (“Ilu” in Sumerian) referred to the Anunnaki pantheon as a whole, in the context of Abel it referred to Enki.
Enki’s other epithet was Sama-El, meaning “Lord of Sumer”, that is, Sumeria, or Eridu in particular. Thus paraphrased, the name Abel meant “a son of the son of Enki”. The name Abel was thus a tribute to Adapa, who was the son of Enki. This indeed was fitting as Adapa was Abel’s father. NEXT WEEK: BLOOD SPILLS AT ERIDU
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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.