The Partition of Earth
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Benson C Saili
THIS EARTH, MY BROTHER
Africa goes to Enki; Indo-Europe to Enlil, but “Land of Rockets” is designated a neutral zone
As the Anunnaki princes just stopped short of coming to blows whilst they laid claim to prospective territorial spheres of influence, Enlil, the Bible’s central Jehovah/Yahweh, took his step-brother Enki aside and made a desperate proposition. “For peace to prevail, the habitable lands between us should be apart set!” he said. Put simply, Enlil’s suggestion was that Earth be divided between the Enlilites and the Enkites. Enki, a peacenik by natural bent, gave the idea the nod and soon the pantheon were in heated and protracted discussion as to who would get what. “The Anunnaki who decree the fates sat exchanging their counsels regarding the Earth,” say the Sumerian records.
Following days of argument and counter-argument punctuated by flares of temper, they finally reached detente: in a gesture echoed in the 1884-1885 Berlin Conference that paved way for European powers’ “Scramble for Africa”, Earth was to be divided into three main regions. Enki had insisted that the regions were to be allocated primarily to Noah’s three sons (and therefore his grandsons) and only secondarily to the Anunnaki since the planet belonged to humans and not to the Anunnaki. He was persuasive.
Accordingly, Africa and parts of Arabia were given to the Hamites – Ham’s people. Japheth’s people were allotted Indo-Europe, which straddled Asia Minor, Iran, India, and immediate Europe. The Shemites – Shem’s people – received Mesopotamia and the Near-Eastern lands, encompassing today’s Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and the northern parts of Arabia. GENESIS 10 sets out in detail this partition of the planet in what scholars call the Table of Nations. Only the lands nearest Jerusalem, the Navel or Centre of the Earth, were so shared: the far-flung parts of the world such as the Americas, the Far East, Oceania, and the Polar Regions remained no-man’s lands officially.
However, overall authority, Enlil insisted against the wishes of Enki, was to vest in Anunnaki overlords: all the three regions were to be subdivided so that their oversight was given to members of the Anunnaki pantheon. Since the Enkites had always dominated Africa, they were to oversee the lands of Ham, the “Dark Lands”, clearly the source of the term “Dark Continent”. The Enlilites were to oversee the lands of Shem and Japheth, called the “Olden Lands”.
Having assembled his clan, Enlil set about parcelling out the lands of Shem and Japheth to them. Ninurta, his firstborn, was given the highlands of Elam (west and southwest of modern Iran) and Assyria (northeastern Iraq). Nannar-Sin, the second-born, got Mesopotamia (roughly corresponding to most of Iraq plus Kuwait, the eastern parts of Syria, and southeastern Turkey). Ishkur-Adad, the third born, received Asia Minor (the land of the Hittites, comprising largely of modern-day Turkey and Armenia) and Lebanon. Inanna-Ishtar, Enlil’s granddaughter and daughter of Nannar-Sin, was promised (not given, at least at this stage ) the Indus Valley.
Enki too sat down his six sons and allotted them their respective domains. For reasons we shall dwell upon in detail in the next piece, Marduk, his firstborn, wasn’t directly allocated a domain: instead, it was his son Shu who was given Egypt and the associated lands of Libya and Ethiopia, as well as the southern parts of Arabia. Nergal, the second-born, received the southernmost part of Africa as well as most parts of West Africa – clearly the reason Nigeria and Niger are so-called and why blacks are also known as Negroes (Nergalas).
All the major mining regions of the day were given to Gibil: they included Zimbabwe, Chad, Gauteng, and Ghana. Ninagal, who had piloted Noah’s ark, got the Great Lakes region of East Africa and the headwaters of the Nile River. The youngest, Dumuzi, was entrusted the grazing plateau of Sudan, being the Anunnaki’s leading animal husbandman.
That leaves out two prominent Anunnaki princes, namely Ningishzidda, an Enkite, and Utu-Shamash, an Enlilite. Well, Ningishzidda was first and foremost an intellectual and a sage. He wasn’t a politician, polemicist, or glory-seeker. As such, he never showed the slightest interest in the jostling for land and power politics. His role was essentially that of a teacher and a thinker. The Egyptians called him Thoth, meaning the “Great Teacher”.
A superlative genius, a trait he had inherited from his equally phenomenally gifted father Enki, he was a problem solver to whom no difficult was insurmountable. He had mastery of practically every discipline, whether this be architecture, physics, mathematics, geology, genetics, sacred geometry, metaphysics, Gnosticism, or simply spirituality. He was content with concerning himself with only matters of the intellect as opposed to geopolitics. How about Utu-Shamash, Enlil’s grandson and Inanna-Ishtar’s twin brother? What did he garner from the partition of this wretched planet?
LAND OF THE ROCKETSHIPS
In addition to the three ethnically allotted regions, Enlil and Enki decided to create a fourth with a view to foster continued solidarity between the relentlessly feuding clans. This wasn’t a region strictly speaking but a neutral zone which would be run jointly by Enlilites and Enkites. It was the area in the Sinai Peninsula where the post-diluvial spaceport was located. This enclave zone, which was in the broader Shemite lands, was to be called Tilmun, also rendered as Dilmun. The four regions collectively constituted what came to be known as the Four Corners of the Earth.
The word Tilmun had several but closely related senses. In one vein, the typical frame of reference, it meant “Land of Rocketships” as it was the spaceport, the place where space vehicles took off and landed to and from Mars, the Moon, the international space station in Earth’s orbit, or the Nibiru-bound Mothership. In another, it meant “Land of Immortality” as “Til” also meant “Life”. Indeed, the Tree of Life was in Sumerian known as Gishtil. By the same token, the term Gishtil could also connote “The Vehicle of Life”.
This was a rocketship as in the eyes of mankind, the rocket was a symbol of eternal life, being the means by which one was transported to Nibiru, believed to be Heaven as per the Anunnaki brainwash. Finally, Tilmun could also be interpreted to mean, “A Securely Guarded Place”, which was to be expected as it housed the crucial rockets. It was peppered with “hostile eyes” described in Genesis as “flaming swords that turned in every direction” (GENESIS 3:24). These were simply searchlights with shifting light beams. They were the All-Seeing Eye.
Tilmun had become the new Edin or Eden, which was situated in modern-day Iraq before the Deluge. But whereas the pre-diluvial Edin was a constellation of city states, the new Edin was simply a comparatively smaller enclave territory. Like Tilmun, the term Eden had several shades of related meanings. In one sense, it meant “A place of the Gods”, that is, the Anunnaki.
In another, it meant “Abode of the Pure Ones” or “Abode of the Mighty Ones”, both terms of which were particular to the Anunnaki, who were regarded as “All-powerful”, by virtue of their “mind-boggling” technology, immortal, and who fancied themselves as beings of a superior and uncorrupted genetic pedigree compared to mankind. In yet another vein, Tilmun conveyed the sense of “A Noisy Place”, very likely the origin of the English word “din”, meaning “confused noise”. We all know how noisy the precincts of an airport can be as aircraft land and take off.
Tilmun was also the new Paradise, an idyllic place, as far as mankind was concerned. This was the place Noah and his great grandfather Enoch lived in luxury pending their onward transfer to Nibiru, the former for being the Hero of the Deluge and the latter for dutifully fulfilling his CIA-like remit under the aegis of the Enlilites. “In the Land of the Crossing (metaphorical intersection between Earth and Nibiru), the Land Tilmun, the place where Utu rises, they caused him (Noah) to dwell”, the Sumerian records relate.
Originally, however, the term Paradise did not mean a heavenly place. It was Pairi Daize (from pairi [around] and diz [to make, form, build]). A Pairi Daize was therefore a heavily or tightly policed place, with watch towers for maximum vigil all around (the Setswana term Phara-disa, meaning “securely watched over”, drives the point crisply home). Given that whoever was in charge of Tilmun controlled the logistical links between Earth and Nibiru, who would be overall in charge of the place? An Enkite or an Enlilite?
“MAMMI” GIVEN CHARGE BUT SHAMASH CALL THE SHOTS
There was a stalemate between the Enkites and the Enlilites as to which god would govern Tilmun. Having been so deadlocked, they finally settled for Ninmah, the “Great Lady” as her name fittingly meant. Ninmah, also known as Ninti, meaning “Lady of Life” given the surrogate role she played in the creation of Adam, was a best-fit although she was no more than a medical lady occupationalwise. A half-sister to Enlil and step-sister to Enki, Ninmah, who was affectionately known as Mammi, meaning “Mother of the Gods”, had children with either brother, these being Ninurta in the case of Enlil and six daughters in the case of the randy Casanova that was Enki. She typically cast the deciding vote when the Enkites and Enlilites each refused to budge on an issue.
Having accepted her new role, Ninmah was conferred a new title. From now henceforth, she was to be known as Ninharsag, meaning “Lady of the Mountain Head”. Mount Harsag, today known as Mount St. Catherine, was the highest peak in the Sinai Peninsula. Ninmah’s other new title was Hathor, the name by which she was best known in Egypt. The epithet meant “Falcon House”: indeed the name was spelt hieroglyphically by drawing a falcon, a type of bird, within an enclosure. A falcon (as was the eagle) was the Sumerian metaphor for a rocketship, the reason Anunnaki astronauts were called “Falcon Gods”. Hathor thus suited Ninmah as the god presiding over Tilmun, the Land of the Rocketships.
The truth of the matter though was that Ninmah, because of her innately gentle nature, did not exercise much sway as the head of Tilmun. She was overshadowed by the incessant factional discord and political slugfests between the Enkites and the Enlilites. Although Tilmun on paper was exclusively the preserve of the Anunnaki and from which “mortals”, or Earthlings, were banned, this was not consistently the case.
Only the spaceport proper and the mountain silos where the rockets were kept and serviced were out of bounds to humans. The Anunnaki needed mankind for a whole host of menial tasks, such as mining and agricultural work, and they just could not keep us at bay completely. A specific tribe, known as the Qenites or Kenites, meaning “smiths” or “metallurgists”, was chosen to work in the Tilmun mines. The Kenites, who were descendants of Cain, were the pioneer inhabitants of the Sinai Peninsula and therefore predated the Anunnaki presence there. They were the tribe into which Moses would later marry when he fled Egypt and sought refuge in the Sinai.
The Lord of Tilmun was also the Lord of Shalem, as Jerusalem was then called. At some stage in the future, two human sovereigns under the overall Anunnaki Lord were appointed to attend to matters pertaining to Earthlings resident in Tilman and Jerusalem respectively. These went by the title King. The King of Tilmun, however, had jurisdiction only over Tilmun City on the eastern shore of the Red Sea and not over the whole Land of Tilmun.
One such King of Tilmun was Qanayah, a Kenite. In the greater scheme of things though, Qanayah ranked very lowly even among fellow human monarchs. Esarhaddon, the King of Assyria from 681 – 669 BC, is said to have boasted that, “Upon Qanayah, King of Tilmun, I imposed tribute." In the time of Abraham, the King of Jerusalem went by the title Melchizedek. This was Terah, Abraham’s own father.
On the whole, however, the real boss of the Land of Tilmun was Utu-Shamash. For it was he who was the spaceport commander. In fact, to humans, Shamash was the most admired Anunnaki god as he was in charge of the rocketships – the Vehicles of Eternal Life. All the demigods – part-human, part Anunnaki – who wanted to live as long as the Anunnaki did (that is, “forever” in the eyes of mankind) sought Shamash, the most famous case of which is that of Gilgamesh, the King of Uruk (modern-day Warka in Iraq). And in daily parlance, Tilmun was characterised as “The Place where Utu Rises”, that is, soars to the skies in his sky vehicle, which euphemistically could also mean “exercises hegemony”.
NINURTA MAKES A PARADISE OF TILMUN
It was Ninurta who made Tilmun, a disconcertingly mountainous terrain, conducive to habitation by his mother. When she was voted as the Head of Tilmun and had misgivings about its suitability as a settlement, Ninurta rendered her the following promise:
“Its valleys shall be verdant with vegetation. Its slopes shall produce honey and wine for you … Its terraces shall be adorned with fruit as a garden. The Harsag shall provide you with the fragrance of the gods, shall provide you with the shiny lodes. Its mines will as tribute copper and tin give you; its mountains shall multiply cattle large and small. The Harsag shall bring forth the four-legged creatures.”
Ninurta, who personally supervised the revamp and retrofitting of Tilmun, lived up to his billing for soon it was bursting with lush vegetation, wood products, minerals, and livestock in the form of sheep and goats. Ancient records document that Tilmun was a major source of copper, the blue-green gemstone turquoise, and the blue-green mineral malachite. Ninurta hired Ningishzidda, the “God of Sciences”, to do the geological survey that turned up lodes of such minerals. Indeed, the Egyptians referred to Tilmun as the “Land of Mafkat” and Ninmah as the “Lady of Mafkat”. Mafkat was the Egyptian term for turquoise, Tilmun’s most eminent export.
Another important product of Tilmun was acacia wood, which was used for temple furnishings and which was a popular Mesopotamian import. However, the product that was basically a byword for Tilmun was the date palm, which even today is the Sinai’s most eminent product. It “provides the Bedouin with fruit (dates); its pulp and kernels are fed to camels and goats; the trunk is used for building and as fuel; the branches for roofing; the fibres for rope and weaving.”
The Anunnaki gods had quite a taste for dates of the Sinai as Sumerian records inform us that Gilgamesh ordered that “every day of the year, for the four daily meals, 108 measures of ordinary dates, and dates of the Land Tilmun, as also figs and raisins . . . shall be offered to the deities (Anunnaki)." It was on Mount Harsag that Ninurta raised a fragrant garden for his mother and it was in a verdant valley near a spring with date palms that he built her a luxurious dwelling.
To ordinary mankind, however, the date palm had the most obsessive conceptual significance. Since it grew in “Paradise” (and was reportedly the most commonplace tree on planet Nibiru), it was emblematically associated with the rocket, the Vehicle of Life. It came to represent the proverbial Tree of Life, a tree that conferred immortality. Thus in Sumerian art, the date palm marked the gateway to Heaven. Sumerian cuneiform clay tablets show eaglemen (Anunnaki) saluting either the date palm or the rocket. They also show the entrance to King Anu’s palace on Nibiru emblazoned with the same imagery.
NEXT WEEK: HOW DIFFERENT RACES CAME ABOUT
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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.