Ninurta Bombs Tower of Babel
Columns
Benson C Saili
THIS EARTH, MY BROTHER
… as Enlilites programme multiple languages into Marduk’s people and scatter them all over the Earth
With Marduk having cocked a snoop at him, Enlil called a meeting with his brood to decide how once again they were going to tame the “Great Serpent”, as Marduk was deprecatingly dubbed. Says the Sumerian records: “Marduk an unpermitted Gateway to Heaven is building, to Earthlings it he is entrusting! So did Enlil to his sons and grandchildren say. If this we allow to happen, no other matter of Mankind shall be unreached! This is just the beginning of their undertakings: from now on, anything that they shall scheme to do shall no longer be impossible for them."
Enlil’s statement is pregnant with insight as to how all-powerful mankind would be with their own spaceport courtesy of their leader Marduk. We were going to be on par with the Anunnaki in terms of our technological potential. Nothing would be beyond our ken anymore. We would travel to space, explore other planets, reach every corner of Earth, discover new mineral deposits, mine them, harness them, beneficiate them by manufacturing arms, partake of Ormus at will, ad infinitum. Marduk was right.
The spaceport was his first major step toward the empowerment wholly and totally of mankind. Marduk did not intend to keep us in eternal ignorance like Enlil did: he wanted to elevate us to the same level as the Anunnaki in one quantum leap. Remember, his aim was to be the King of this planet and as such, he wanted to reign over fully enlightened and capable people who would make Earth a planet to reckon with not only in the Solar System but across the whole cosmos. He was born on the throne planet of Orion, had grown up on the throne planet of Sirius, had spent time on planet Nibiru, and had lived on planet Mars. So he had a good idea of the kind of planet Earth was going to be when he was the new Enlil.
On the other hand, Enlil was not interested in the welfare of this planet. All the Anunnaki had been instructed to vacate the planet by King Anu once mankind was sufficiently civilised. Only Marduk was strictly barred from ever returning to Nibiru or the Sirius star system for having “defiled himself” when he married Sarpanit, a full Earthling. Ninurta had the option to return to Nibiru but like Marduk, he too wanted to rise to the supremacy of Earth but he was not popular to Earthlings in general in view of his having gassed Africans in the Second Pyramid War. Thus in the battle for the hearts of the human race, he had already lost. Inevitably, he was sorely jealous of Marduk’s popularity with Earthlings. Marduk had to be stopped in his tracks at all costs.
THE LAUNCH TOWER IS STRUCK
Exactly how was Marduk going to be stopped? The Enlilites settled for three courses of action. First, the tower must be destroyed. Second, a divide and rule scheme must be implemented. Hitherto, all the Earthlings had one universal language which made co-operation a very easy proposition. From now on, they should be introduced to new and radically different languages which should set them apart from each other and therefore weaken their bonds. Thirdly, all of Marduk’s people must be driven out of Babylon and scattered all over the world so that they lose a sense of oneness.
The first phase of the resolution was entrusted to Ninurta and was conducted under cover of darkness, which did not make any difference as the construction team was working round the clock to complete the project and lived in a huge camp around the construction site. At any given time, about two-thirds of the workforce were on site. General Ninurta settled at the controls of a fighter craft, one of an armada that was equipped with bunker-bursting bombs, and led the way from Nippur to Babylon at breakneck sped. About half an hour later, the Earth was heard to shake across Sumer as the bombs were unleashed on Marduk’s only partially complete space-launch tower.
“It was night time when from Nibruki (Nippur) the Enlilite Anunnaki came,” say the Sumerian records. “From their skyships, havoc upon the rising tower, fire and brimstones, they rained.” The results were spectacularly gory. According to the apocryphal Book of Jasher, one-third of the Babylonians were so blown to bits they could not be traced and another one-third were unearthed from the rabble but with fatal burns that made them unidentifiable. Only the one-third that were not on the site survived. “To the tower and the whole encampment a complete end they made,” say the Sumerian texts. Marduk was devastated. “The incident of the Tower of Babel brought to an unexpected end the longest era of Peace on Earth that Man can recall,” writes Zechariah Sitchin.
Next, the survivors were rounded up, herded into cargo “sky birds” and ocean liners, and taken to new places near and far as armed Enlilites kept watch over them. Writes Andrea Paris in Planet of Gold: “The forefathers of the Alaskan Eskimos, the Japanese, and even the Egyptians have been transported to where they are now according to their mythology. In fact, the Eskimo mythology tells us their forefathers had been transported there inside ‘big metal birds’.” Once they landed in these totally foreign locations, Marduk’s people were artificially and mentally programmed with new languages that erased the language they originally spoke. Few people are aware that a language can be programmed into one’s psyche.
High-level ex-Satanists from the Western world who have become Christians have testified that they were able to speak foreign languages which had been programmed into them. I know you are wondering how this is possible but to those in the know it’s pretty simple. Everything, including language, is energy and energy is differentiated by what are known as frequencies. So, if you know the frequency of a language and you know how to manipulate that frequency, you can erase it from the DNA and introduce a new language frequency or frequencies in the same DNA.
The authors of Genesis present the “confusion of languages” as though it was done magically when it was not. But we need not bash them too hard for this: they didn’t understand phenomena in the way we do today and thus anything that was atypical was a miracle to them. The term “Babel” has come to denote “confusion”. This stems from the word play the Genesis writers employed in relating “Bab-ili” (Babylon) with the Hebrew word “Bll”, which means to confuse or mix up. By the same token, the term “shem” has spawned such sorry terms as “sham” or “shame”. It all harps back to the shame and sham the project to construct a platform from which to launch shems became.
MARDUK CLASHES WITH ZIDDA
Initially, Marduk dug in his heels: he vowed that despite losing great numbers of people and seeing his project reduced to rabble, he still was going to remain in Babylon. His immediate younger brother Nergal, however, told him there was no need for him to create unnecessary friction with the Enlilites, who had given him an ultimatum to leave Sumer. The Age of the Ram, when he was scheduled to rule Earth, was around the corner. He should therefore simply bide his time and keep a low profile till his eligibility day arrived. “Let us peacefully wait for the true signs of heaven,” Nergal pleaded with his brother.
Marduk was persuaded but he was in no hurry to move: he waited for another 10 years (10 was his ranking in the Anunnaki pantheon) before he and his followers retraced their way to the “Land of the Two Narrows”, an epithet for Egypt. This was in the year 3450 BC. Marduk’s choice of Egypt was only secondarily because it was the headquarters of the Enkites. His underlying motive was to reinstate himself to the rulership of Egypt to take advantage of the new dispensation that was looming: King Anu had stipulated that in 3100 BC, the “Second Region” (as the Enkite lands were known) was to be civilised too just as Sumer had been in 3800 BC. Again the 700-year interval had to do with the number 7, which was Enlil’s celestial number (Earth, over which Enlil ruled, was the 7th planet counting from Pluto).
But when Marduk arrived to reclaim the throne of Egypt, he was opposed by his younger brother Ningishzidda, who was vying for the throne too. Zidda, known as Tehuti in Egypt (Thoth in English) and the most popular Anunnaki after his father Enki, first ruled the country from 8670 to 7100 BC as the compromise choice according to the terms of the Enkite-Enlilite accord following the end of the Second Pyramid War. After ruling for 1570 years, he handed over to demigods – those who were part Earthling part Anunnaki – who reigned for a total of 3650 years, that is, from 7100 to 3450 BC. The demigods were interrupted by the returning Marduk, who issued an abrupt decree that their era was over as the boss was back. But the Egyptians were divided: most wanted Zidda to take over instead of Marduk. Whilst they liked Marduk too, they feared he was too bellicose and was therefore liable to precipitate another devastating war with the Enlilites. Besides, Marduk had never been seen in Egypt for over 300 years, having left in 3760 BC.
Enki as the family head loved his sons equally and so when each asked him for his blessings, his response was that they should sit down and iron out the matter between themselves. This they did but they just could not come to terms. Marduk gave Zidda to understand that he was Enki’s firstborn and was therefore entitled to rule Egypt, and that even during the years when Zidda ruled Egypt, he was just holding fort for him. Marduk also pointed out the wrongs Zidda had committed whilst Marduk was away. For example, Zidda had Horus, who also had ambitions to rule Egypt again, restricted to “a desert place … a place that has no water, a boundless place where sexual pleasures are not enjoyed”. Zidda just had to give way: it was either Marduk’s way or the highway. “Pay heed,” Marduk said to his younger brother. “I am here in my proper place! You have been my place-taker. From now on, only a deputy of mine you can be. But if to rebellion you are inclined, to another land go away you must!”
Zidda replied that he didn’t want to rule Egypt because he was personally ambitious: it was all in keeping with the terms of the peace at the conclusion of the Second Pyramid War in 8670 BC, which stipulated that Marduk should never ever rule Egypt. “I wouldn’t want to see the Enlilites attack us again because we’re in breach of the peace accord,” he tried to reason with his brother. Marduk said to hell with the Enlilites. He was going to rule Egypt whether they liked it or not.
ZIDDA IN SELF-EXILE
For the next 350 years (337 years to be exact: 350 is just a approximation), a period scholars have described as a “chaotic time during which Egypt was disunited and in disarray”, there was a stalemate between Marduk and Zidda as to who should be sole ruler of Egypt. None of the two really called the shots. Some people recognised Marduk as the ruler and others deferred to Zidda. Finally, Enki decided to intervene. In 3113 BC, he approached Zidda and besought him to give up his contention for rulership for the sake of peace. In fact, Enki suggested it was best that Zidda departs Egypt altogether and found his own domain as far afield as Mesoamerica, where he would have no competition whatsoever as the Anunnaki did not particularly favour that part of the world owing to its comparatively hotter climate then.
The one good thing about Zidda was that he was unfailingly obedient to his father, the only one among Enki’s six sons who was so submissive. He acceded to his father’s pleas all right but he did not head to “The Land Beyond the Oceans” straightway: instead he made a beeline for Babylon, where Marduk had been expelled from in 3450 BC. From that time henceforth, Zidda adopted the number 52 as his talismanic number. Why 52?
Well, he had ruled Egypt for 1570 years. Then he had been the ceremonial monarch (when the demigods ruled at his behest) for 3650 years. His effective uncontested rulership of Egypt therefore added up to 5220 years. If you round this figure off to only two digits, it amounts to 52.
The other explanation for the enigmatic number of 52 can be gleaned from Zechariah Sitchin. It has to do with the geometrical miracle Zidda wrought in the Great Pyramid. “The Great Pyramid has four triangular sides that rise at the tricky angle of 52 degrees,” writes Sitchin in his The War of the Gods. “The rather steep angle of 52 degrees has been attained in Egypt only in the Giza pyramids, which were built neither by Cheops or any other Pharaoh but by the gods of the ancient Near East, as beacons for landing at their spaceport in the Sinai peninsula. All the other Egyptian pyramids—lesser, smaller, decayed, or collapsed—were indeed built by Pharaohs, millennia later, in emulation of the gods’‘stairways to heaven’. But none succeeded in attaining the perfect angle of 52 degrees and whenever this was attempted, the attempt ended in collapse.”
Still another explanation is that the number 52 represented the 52 weeks of a year. Marduk was ecstatic at Zidda’s departure. No sooner had Zidda left than he set out to erase his memory in the hearts of Egyptians forever. First, he had Zidda’s face on the Great Sphinx replaced with his (Marduk) most beloved son/grandson Osiris. Second, he withdrew Zidda’s lunar-based calendar and introduced the solar-based calendar to accord with his boast as the Sun God. Finally, he introduced Base 10 mathematics and did away with sexagesmal or Base 60 mathematics. Again this was to accord with his ranking of 10 in the Anunnaki pantheon.
But it wasn’t Zidda only who Marduk wanted to blot out from the memories of his people. In Thebes, there was a sculpture of the Bull, an icon of Enlil and which some of the Egyptians reverenced. Marduk destroyed it and had a new sculpture of the Bull erected but which showed it “pierced and deflated” to betoken the fate of Enlil when Marduk replaced him at the dawn of the Age of the Ram. Marduk in fact proceeded to erect huge sculptures of the ram throughout Egypt as a harbinger of his imminent supremacy over the whole planet.
And in order to prepare Egypt for its own civilisation that was to take effect in 3100 BC, Marduk asked Enki to provide him with the MEs, the computer chips that encrypted more than 100 aspects of civilisation. Enlil hearkened to his son’s plea. The MEs embodied all manner of knowledge except that pertaining to raising the dead. The only Anunnaki who had knowledge of restoring the dead to life were Enki and Zidda. Marduk was distraught that his father had denied him this knowledge.
THE FIRST ROTHSCHILDS AND ROCKEFELLERS
Like Zidda before him, Marduk did not intend to rule Egyptians directly but through a supine demigod. He himself would simply be the superintending “god”. The title he chose for the demigod was Peraa, or Pharaoh in modern spelling. Paraphrased, it meant “He of the Great House”. The “Great House” was a metaphor for the Egyptian royal institution which was headed by Marduk. The first Pharaoh was Mena, or Menes as he’s best known. Likely a bastard son of Marduk himself (the Sumerian records say he was an offspring of a Neteru, as the Anunnaki were called in Egypt, and an Earthling), he was the founder of the First Dynasty and he’s credited for having united upper and lower Egypt. Menes built his capital along a line where Upper and Lower Egypt met and called it Mena Nefer, meaning “Mena’s Beauty”. His aim was to make Mena Nefer rival the Sumerian city-state of Kish in terms of glory and splendour.
But you and I know that a King is only a figurehead. Marduk entrusted his priests and offspring to administer Egypt, the people who wielded real power. Now, let us first recognise that Marduk’s full title as the god of Egypt was Rra Ka, meaning “The Universal Sun God” or “The Supreme Conscience” (Ka was consciousness in Egyptian). Rra Ka assigned his offspring to manage the wealth of his empire. They were referred to as the Ra Kam, meaning “Children of Rra”.
As his offspring, they were his shield and therefore the term Kam came to mean “shield”. The Rakam were “Ra’s Shield”. Today, this is … Rothschild! The Rothschilds not only are the wealthiest clan on Earth but they are the ones running the major banks of much of the world. It is said Rothschild means “Red Shield.” You and I know that the Red Shield is the coat of arms of the Vatican. Thus the Rothschilds in truth serve not themselves but the Jesuit-General, also known as the Black Pope – the most powerful visible being on Earth.
For the day-to-day administration of the empire, Marduk appointed an elite group of priests who were not related to him to see to that. These priests, the Lord Administrators of the empire, were known as the Rakaperaa (or Rakapharoahs), meaning “Holy Ones of the Great House”. The Rakaperaas are today known as … the Rockefellers. It is the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers who conduct the day-to-day affairs of the world. There’s more than meets the eye to this Earth, my
Brother.
NEXT WEEK: THE FEATS OF ZIDDA AND HIS BLACK ANUNNAKI
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GONE FISHING
In recent years, using personal devices in working environments has become so commonplace it now has its own acronym, BOYD (Bring Your Own Device). But as employees skip between corporate tools and personal applications on their own devices, their actions introduce a number of possible risks that should be managed and mitigated with careful consideration. Consider these examples:
Si-lwli, a small family-run business in Wales, is arguably as niche a company as you could find, producing talking toys used to promote the Welsh language. Their potential market is small, with only some 300,000 Welsh language speakers in the world and in reality the business is really more of a hobby for the husband-and-wife team, who both still have day jobs. Yet, despite still managing to be successful in terms of sales, the business is now fighting for survival after recently falling prey to cybercriminals. Emails between Si-Iwli and their Chinese suppliers were intercepted by hackers who altered the banking details in the correspondence, causing Si-Iwli to hand over £18,000 (around P ¼ m) to the thieves. That might not sound much to a large enterprise, but to a small or medium business it can be devastating.
Another recent SMB hacking story which appeared in the Wall Street Journal concerned Innovative Higher Ed Consulting (IHED) Inc, a small New York start-up with a handful of employees. IHED didn’t even have a website, but fraudsters were able to run stolen credit card numbers through the company’s payment system and reverse the charges to the tune of $27,000, around the same loss faced by Si-Iwli. As the WSJ put it, the hackers completely destroyed the company, forcing its owners to fold.
And in May 2019, the city of Baltimore’s computer system was hit by a ransomware attack, with hackers using a variant called RobinHood. The hack, which has lasted more than a month, paralysed the computer system for city employees, with the hackers demanding a payment in Bitcoin to give access back to the city.
Of course, hackers target governments or business giants but small and medium businesses are certainly not immune. In fact, 67% of SMBs reported that they had experienced a cyber attack across a period of 12 months, according to a 2018 survey carried out by security research firm Ponemon Institute. Additionally, Verizon issued a report in May 2019 that small businesses accounted for 43% of its reported data breaches. Once seen as less vulnerable than PCs, smartphone attacks are on the rise, with movements like the Dark Caracal spyware campaign underlining the allure of mobile devices to hackers. Last year, the US Federal Trade Commission released a statement calling for greater education on mobile security, coming at a time when around 42% of all Android devices are believed to not carry the latest security updates.
This is an era when employees increasingly use their smartphones for work-related purposes so is your business doing enough to protect against data breaches on their employees’ phones? The SME Cyber Crime Survey 2018 carried out for risk management specialists AON showed that more than 80% of small businesses did not view this as a threat yet if as shown, 67% of SMBs were said to have been victims of hacking, either the stats are wrong or business owners are underestimating their vulnerability. A 2019 report by PricewaterhouseCoopers suggests the latter, stating that the majority of global businesses are unprepared for cyber attacks.
Consider that a workstation no longer means a desk in an office: It can be a phone in the back of a taxi or Uber; a laptop in a coffee shop, or a tablet in an airport lounge. Wherever the device is used, employees can potentially install applications that could be harmful to your business, even from something as seemingly insignificant as clicking on an accidental download or opening a link on a phishing email. Out of the physical workplace, your employees’ activities might not have the same protections as they would on a company-monitored PC.
Yet many businesses not only encourage their employees to work remotely, but assume working from coffee shops, bookstores, and airports can boost employees’ productivity. Unfortunately, many remote hot spots do not provide secure Wi-Fi so if your employee is accessing their work account on unsecured public Wi-Fi, sensitive business data could be at risk. Furthermore, even if your employee uses a company smartphone or has access to company data through a personal mobile device, there is always a chance data could be in jeopardy with a lost or stolen device, even information as basic as clients’ addresses and phone numbers.
BOYDs are also at risk from malware designed to harm and infect the host system, transmittable to smartphones when downloading malicious third-party apps. Then there is ransomware, a type of malware used by hackers to specifically take control of a system’s data, blocking access or threatening to release sensitive information unless a ransom is paid such as the one which affected Baltimore. Ransomware attacks are on the increase, predicted to occur every 14 seconds, potentially costing billions of dollars per year.
Lastly there is phishing – the cyber equivalent of the metaphorical fishing exercise – whereby cybercriminals attempt to obtain sensitive data –usernames, passwords, credit card details –usually through a phoney email designed to look legitimate which directs the user to a fraudulent website or requests the data be emailed back directly. Most of us like to think we could recognize a phishing email when we see it, but these emails have become more sophisticated and can come through other forms of communication such as messaging apps.
Bottom line is to be aware of the potential problems with BOYDs and if in doubt, consult your IT security consultants. You can’t put the own-device genie back in the bottle but you can make data protection one of your three wishes!
Columns
“I Propose to Diana 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.