The Rise of Sargon the Great
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Benson C Saili
THIS EARTH, MY BROTHER
Sexually fulfilled Inanna elevates her great Earthling stud to Sumerian throne
Let us now revert to the relevant timeframe in which we are at this stage of The Earth Chronicles, that is, in the 3rd Millennium BC (3000 to 2000 BC) after fast-forwarding to the day of the Nebuchadnezzars and Alexander the Greats of this world. It was during this period that Gilgamesh, the great King of Uruk, Inanna-Ishtar’s cult centre, waxed and waned. It was also during this time, circa 2760 to 2600 BC, that Enkidu, Gilgamesh’s best friend, destroyed the Gudanna, Enlil’s magnificent fighter craft, on the outskirts of Uruk.
The destruction of the Gudanna was a telling blow to Enlil, the Bible’s principal Jehovah/Yahweh. The Gudanna was synonymous with Enlil himself. It was the symbol of Enlil, who was the presiding god over the astrological Age of Taurus (4380-2220 BC), whose emblem was the bull. Enlil was thus known as the Bull of Heaven and the Gudanna too was called the Bull of Heaven. The destruction of the Gudanna therefore was a very bad portent for Enlil, who was so incensed he engineered the subtle killing of Enkidu in a shipwreck triggered by a hitman of his around today’s Strait of Ormuz near Oman using a sophisticated directed-energy weapon.
The Anunnaki believed in fates and omens. As far as they were concerned, nothing happened by chance: every event had a karmic purpose or a message. It was either destiny (the unalterable will of God) or fate (the flexible will of God whereby man had a “say” through his own random actions). As such, the destruction of the Gudanna was interpreted as a severe dent to Enlil’s power and authority over Earth.
To Marduk, it signalled that Enlil’s days as Earth’s ruler were numbered, that his (Marduk) time to rule was more imminent than he had initially thought. In fact, in northern Egypt and other predominantly Enkite domains or population pockets, the “Slaying of the Bull”, as the downing of the Gudanna was dubbed, was celebrated like a carnival.
Now, when the Gudanna was destroyed, Inanna, who had been riding in it in pursuit of Gilgamesh and Enkidu, “in her abode set up a wail all the way to Anu in the heavens”. At a superficial level, this suggested she was saddened and hurt that her grandfather’s aura of invisibility symbolically speaking had been pierced. But it was all a make-believe stunt. Inanna had schemed the Gudanna’s destruction with the unwitting assistance of her twin brother Utu-Shamash, who had provided Gilgamesh and Enkidu with a sophisticated, shoulder mounted surface-to-air missile which a quick-witted Enkidu employed to pinpoint precision.
Why did Inanna want the Gudanna destroyed? Because she was positioning herself to become the new Enlil at the expense of Marduk in the forthcoming astrological Age of Aries. The destruction of the Gudanna was therefore her way of serving symbolic notice to Enlil that it was time he moved over and she took over as Earth’s sovereign, that he was ill-suited for the power politics of the day that needed the participation only of a fresher generation and not geriatrics like he was. Sadly, a dim Enlil failed to read through Inanna’s cunning and instead directed his wrath at the mere pawn that was Enkidu. This Earth, My Brother …
ENLIL-IN-WAITING MARDUK DEPLOYS AMARU INTO SUMERIA
At the time of the destruction of the Gudanna, the two most powerful Enlilites, Enlil himself and his eldest son Ninurta, were nowhere near Sumeria. Where were they? The Sumerians records do not specify. The two could have been in South America or on a trip to either Mars or the Moon.
The destruction of the Gudanna, coupled with the absence of Enlil, suggested Sumeria was in some chaos. There was a huge power vacuum there which needed to be filled instantly. In the event, Marduk, the incumbent god of Egypt, had reason to salivate as to him it seemed like Enlil had stopped just short of abdicating. But Marduk chose to exercise tact instead of acting rashly.
He mobilised his followers who were based in Europe, which at the time included Syria and Lebanon, as well as in Judea in southern Canaan, and ordered them to fan out into Sumeria to ready it for his eventual takeover. These people were known as the Amaru, meaning “Light-Skinned Ones”. In today’s English and in the English translation of the Old Testament, they are known as Amorites. Europe is actually E-ru-pan, meaning “Land (pan) of White-Skinned People (Eru)”.
Exactly who were the Amaru? According to GENESIS 10:15-16, the Amaru were the offspring of a unnamed son of Canaan, Ham’s fourth-born son. Now, if you recall, we did aver in one of our earlier articles that Noah’s sons, namely Japheth, Ham, and Shem (who were born in the same year through artificial insemination) were not of varying races. None was black, white or brown: they all were brownish in their pigmentation, like what we today call coloureds.
It explains why the Amaru are described as light-skinned, just as the dark-skinned Bantus referred to the San people as BaSarwa (Ba-Se-Ru, meaning “Those Who Are Like The Europeans” by virtue of their yellow skin) when they encountered them here in southern Africa following their (Bantus) great trek from Egypt. If Ham and therefore his son Canaan were pitch black, they would not have given rise to light-skinned Amaru.
The Amorites seemed to have plenty of Anunnaki genes in them, just like Noah their forefather. In DEUTERONOMY 3:11, Moses describes their King Og’s bed as measuring 13.5 feet long, or just over 4 metres. The Amaru were giants, like the Nephilim, a derogatory term for the Igigis, or Anunnaki cosmonauts. They are said, in the Bible, to be “of the height of the cedars” and “of the remnants of the giants”. The Amaru, the first “Westerners”, were no doubt a formidable Enkite force. But were they capable of overrunning the whole of Sumeria and deliver it on a silver platter to their god Marduk as his appointed Age of the Ram dawned?
WAYWARD KING LUGAL RILES ENLIL
Sadly, when the Amaru gained dominion over much of Sumer, more so the northwest, they turned out to be an undisciplined and gravely fractured lot who revelled in warring against each other. In the process, Sumer was deeply balkanised and chaos rather than order took root. Initially, the Enlilite gods, who dominated Sumer in the form of Enlil, Ninurta, Nannar-Sin, Ishkur-Adad and Inanna-Ishtar, simply watched, delighted that with Marduk’s own people killing each other on Sumerian soil, they would end up annihilating each other and Marduk would be the loser at long last. But the chaos was such that the Enlilites finally decided they had had enough and it was time they acted.
In a meeting of the Enlilite Council of the Gods, Inanna was tasked to find and groom a strongman, a demigod, to rule over all of Sumer like Cain and Etana before him had done. This man would be the sole intermediary between mankind and the gods and would devoutly serve the agenda of the Enlilites. “To Inanna, of Marduk the adversary, the task of the right man to find they entrusted”, say the Sumerian chronicles.
As before, the city-state chosen for the resumption of overarching human kingship was Kish, which was fitting as Kish meant “Sceptre City”, or “Seat of Monarchy” (over the ages, kingship had moved scores of times from city-state to city-state though for the last 2300 years it had stayed put at Uruk, having waned after the advent of Gilgamesh and moved to Ur, Sin’s cult city, though presently it was in disarray courtesy of the thick-headed Amorites). But in moving towards that end, the first pilot king would be based in Uruk, Inanna’s cult city, which presently though was in the hands of the Amorites.
The resumptive human king chosen by Inanna was Lugalzagesi. Lugalzagesi was the Ensi, or “Priest King” of Umma, today’s Tell Jokha, about 400 km southeast of Baghdad in Iraq and midway between the Tigris and Euphrates, where he served as high priest to the goddess Ninsaba, a daughter of Enki and Ninmah. Lugalzagesi, however, ruled for only 25 years before stepping onto the toes of Enlil. Lugalzagesi had his work cut out.
He was to reconquer all the cities the Enlilites had lost to the Amorites and therefore spike Marduk. This he did with a flourish: in the 25 years he ruled, he had retaken for the Enlilites Lagash, Ur, Uruk (which he made his headquarters as per the Enlilite plan), Nippur, Larsa, Aksha, and Kish in that order. In his writings, he boasted that Enlil enabled him to overrun “all the lands between the upper and the lower seas", that is the Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf.
Then he rubbed the very Enlil he was crediting for his conquests the wrong way. Like most people besotted with power, Lugalzagesi wanted Uruk to be the seat of kingship in perpetuity and not Kish as per the Enlilites’ ultimate designs. In order to see to it that Kish had no chance whatsoever of reclaiming kingship, he not only overthrew its King Ur-Zababa but recklessly and severely ravaged its infrastructure, reducing it from Sumer’s most spectacular city to its sorriest eyesore.
Since Kish was the city Enlil had earmarked as the future capital of Sumer, he was incensed and when that happened the offender was a marked man. Indeed, Enlil immediately ordered Inanna as patron goddess of Uruk to set in motion a programme for Lugalzagesi’s ouster.
SARGON’S BEGINNINGS GRAFTED ONTO THE MOSES STORY
The person Inanna settled for to replace Lugalzagesi is best-known in history as Sargon the Great. As with everything involving Inanna, the circumstances that led to his choice are kind of dissolute. Exactly who was Sargon? As with most ancient royal personages, his real name is not known. Sargon is the English rendition of the Semitic Sharru-Kin. This can be interpreted in two ways. First, it could be the Semitic (Akkadian) equivalent of the Sumerian Ensi.
In that case, it should be interpreted as “Priest-King” or “Righteous Ruler”, just like Lugalzagesi was. Secondly, it could simply be Se-Ru-Kin, meaning “A European-born King”. Certainly, Sargon was of Amaru parentage and as we have seen above, the Amaru were European immigrants to Sumer. But Sargon was more than a European: he was a demigod, the son of an Anunnaki god and an Earthling woman. His mother was an Entu, a high priestess to the god Nannar-Sin, who fathered Sargon in a Gigunu setting as per godly privilege.
However, Sin did not intend little Sargon to be simply one of his scores of children: he had special future designs on him, into which he took Sargon’s mother in confidence. But fearing that victimisation of some sort might come to her son, from Sin’s legitimate sons with official wife Ningal, Sargon’s mother raised him in absolute secrecy with the connivance of one agrarian. In his autobiography, which scholars have titled The Legend of Sargon, Sargon himself relates his clandestine upbringing as follows:
“My mother was a high priestess. I knew not my father. My mother, the high priestess who conceived me, in secret she bore me. She set me in a basket of reeds, its lid sealed with bitumen. She cast me into the river; it did not sink with me. The river bore me up; it carried me to Akki the irrigator. Akki the irrigator lifted me up when he drew water. Akki the irrigator as a son made me and reared me. Akki the irrigator appointed me as his gardener."
Where did you hear that? It’s in the story of Moses. Now you know that Moses’ infant story is not factual: it was lifted straight and unabashedly from that of Sargon, whose life preceded that of Moses by more than a thousand years. And Christians say the Bible is “inspired by God?” This Earth, My Brother …
SARGON’S GREAT PENIS WOOS INANNA
Having being raised under the auspices of a doting agriculturalist, Sargon himself became an agriculturalist of note. He particularly excelled at growing dates. In practically every royal meal of the day, gargantuan quantities of dates were consumed, which made date growers enormously rich. Since Sargon was not only rich but was a demigod, he was noticed by King Ur-Zababa of Kish (long before he was overthrown by Lugalzagesi). Ur-Zababa was of course tipped by the Anunnaki royalty that Sargon had the blood of the god Nannar-Sin coursing in his veins and therefore was deserving of a plum post in the corridors of power. Accordingly, Lugalzagesi made Sargon his Cup-Bearer.
What did the post of Cup-Bearer entail? It was the most trusted and exalted position in the palace. It was typically held by the heir to the throne. The Cup-Bearer was the chief advisor to the King. And not only that: he was the most trusted. Every food item or drink that was prepared for the King was first tasted by the Cup-Bearer before the King partook of it. The Cup-Bearer was therefore at the side of the King all the while. If you recall, Alalu, the Anunnaki pioneer of Earth and Enki’s father-in-law, was once Cup-Bearer and heir to Anu on the throne planet of the Sirian star system.
One day, circa 2400 BC, Sargon, after tending his backyard garden, decided to sun himself in a hammock stark naked. As he dozed off in the process, Inanna, who was riding in a chopper overhead decided to swoop low so she could make a close-quarters appreciation of his mighty prick. However, when Inanna descended, she pretended to fall asleep in a backseat couch in her chopper.
Sargon, who had been awakened by the loud roar of the chopper’s engine, decided to investigate who this intruder was who had parked his or her chopper right in his yard and refrained from emerging. Although he did expect the intruder to be a “god”, he was surprised as to exactly who it was – a completely naked Inanna dead asleep. Well, when a naked man encounters a naked woman, the inevitable must follow.
Dumbfounded by Inanna’s beauty and tantalising, ageless features, Sargon did not even attempt to rouse Inanna from her apparent slumber: he mounted her straightaway so overcome with desire was he. We call this one-sided indulgence in the sexual act rape, which indeed Sargon himself recognised it was.
“One day my Queen Inanna, after crossing heaven, crossing earth, after crossing Elam and Shubur … approached weary, fell asleep,” he recounts in his famous memoirs referred to above. “I saw her from the edge of my garden, kissed her, copulated with her.”
To his glee, when the bumping and grinding stirred Inanna to life, Inanna, who was Sargon’s half-sister in that they shared the same father Nannar-Sin, did not scream or attempt to sink her teeth into his balls; instead, she flung her arms around his thick neck and wrapped her shapely legs around his waist whilst she kissed him feverishly. “Her eyes shone with pleasure”, Sargon writes. From that day on, Sargon was in her bag.
Not only did she want him to be the daily satiator of her bedtime cravings: she wanted him to be king of her cult city-state of Uruk and eventually as a replacement for Lugalzagesi as overall king of human affairs. To Inanna, when you were great in bed and was bountifully gifted below the belt, you were automatically entitled to anything of your desire plus much more besides.
SARGON IS KING OF SUMER
At the time of Inanna’s encounter with Sargon, Lugalzagesi was still the superintending King of Sumer though total tranquillity was still a far-cry with pockets of resistance here and there, and Ur-Zababa had been ejected by the same Lugalzagesi from the throne of Kish. But Lugalzagesi as we have already noted above had angered Enlil and was consequently blacklisted. Thus when Inanna recommended Sargon as the fitting replacement for Lugalzagesi, that, with the added advantage of his being Nannar-Sin’s extra-wedlock son, very favourably disposed Enlil towards him.
Writes Zechariah Sitchin: “Sumer, its civilisation a millennium and a half old by then, needed a strong hand at the helm of its Kingship —a Kingship that, after the glorious one in Uruk, kept changing capitals; the changes led to conflicts among the cities and eventually between their patron-gods. Seeing in Sargon a man of action and resolve, Inanna recommended him as the next king over all of Sumer and Akkad … It is quite possible that Sargon's Amorite ancestry might have been a favourable consideration, in view of the pressures on Sumer by migrants from the west and northwest.”
Having been given the nod by Enlil and obtained the blessings of King Anu of Nibiru, Sargon moved to confront Lugalzagesi. With the formidable military arsenal provided Sargon by Enlil and with the strategic aid and battlefront participation of Inanna, it was a walkover. Lugalzagesi was captured and had his neck “forced under a yoke and led to the gates of the god Enlil at Nippur”, thus putting paid to Uruk’s Third dynasty, which was represented solely by Lugalzagesi himself. Soon Sargon had united all Sumer and was the undisputed King of Earthlings. He would rule for a total of 54 years, from circa 2400-2346 BC.
NEXT WEEK: SARGON CROSSES MARDUK
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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.