The Hebrews Unplugged
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Benson C Saili
THIS EARTH, MY BROTHER
They originate from Sumer and Ancient India
According to Genesis, there were ten major progenitors (ancestral pillars) of the Semitic people (that is, Shem’s people, today the Jews primarily) from Noah to Terah. These were Noah (Ziusudra in Sumerian); Shem; Arphaxad (Arbakad in Sumerian); Sheila; Eber (Ibri in Sumerian); Peleng; Reu; Serug; Nahor; and finally Terah (Tirhu in Sumerian) in that order.
If we were to go by descent, all the Semites were Sumerians given that Shem was a Sumerian born in the city-state of Shuruppak. So at what stage did the Semites find themselves in India? Frankly speaking, that question is not easy to answer considering that people those days kept moving from place to place and even back and forth to flee from war zones; to escape famine; to go and take command of newly annexed territory; or to simply evangelise, that is, to promote their god.
Yet of one thing we’re certain: Terah was born and raised up in India. His year of birth was 2193 BC. We know he was born into royalty because he was the Priest-King, the Melchizedek, of a region of ancient India (Mahabharata) known as Dwaraka. His father Nahor, after whom he inherited, was either born in India too or migrated there from Sumer once upon a time.
We know that Terah, who in India was known as His Holiness Hara Krishna, a type of Jesus, fought in the Mahabharata War, which pitted Inanna and her Reptilian allies against the rest of the Anunnaki circa 2140 BC. At the time, the Indian empire was officially under the “divine” rule, not executive rule, of Inanna-Ishtar, though her sway over the region had so considerably waned having devoted much of her time to the perpetually tumultuous affairs of Sumer that the Enkites had for all practical purposes taken over. Terah, however, did not fight under Inanna’s banner: he fought under the Anunnaki banner and as an Enkite philosophically.
That said, Terah’s forefathers, who included his own father Nahor, were not consistently Enkites through and through. This is a pattern we see throughout Old Testament times as even the Children of Israel kept shifting loyalties from one god (e.g. Ishkur-Adad) to another (e.g. Enki, Marduk, or Ninmah). For example, during the exodus from Egypt, Moses was at pains to get the Israelites to focus only on Ishkur-Adad, the lead Yahweh/Jehovah of the day.
One day, they forged an image of a calf and venerated it to symbolise the goddess Hathor, another name for Ninmah. At another time, they forced Moses to erect a brazen serpent when Ishkur-Adad let loose snakes on them (for their recurrent acts of disobedience) so that they would be healed from the highly venomous snake bites. Needless to say, the brazen serpent represented Enki, who was the Anunnaki god of healing.
According to JOSHUA 24:2, Abraham’s ancestors “served other gods” when they dwelt “on the other side of the Euphrates”. Abraham’s father Terah is particularly singled out in this regard. That is to say, at least Terah’s generation worshipped objectionable gods when they were denizens of the Indian empire, which indeed lay well beyond the Euphrates River of Sumer. So who were the “other gods” that Abraham’s ancestors worshipped in the Indian sub-continent?
THE “OTHER GODS” WERE ENKITES
Let us return to JOSHUA 24:2. This is how it reads in full: “Joshua said to all the people, ‘This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: Long ago your ancestors, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the Euphrates River and worshiped other gods.” The above statement is the religious version of the passage – call it the spin. In the uncorrupted Hebrew original, it reads thus: “Then Joshua said to all the people, thus says Yahweh Elohim of Israel: across the Stream your fathers dwelt from the eon of old, Terah father of Abraham and father of Nahor, and they served other Elohim.”
I need not restate that by now, we all know who the Elohim were: they were the ruling pantheon of the Anunnaki race. Thus what the passage is trying to highlight is the fact that Abraham’s ancestors worshipped “other Anunnaki”. Who were these? Once again, we by now know that the Anunnaki were in two factions basically, the Enlilites, led by Enlil, the main Jehovah, and the Enkites, led by Enlil’s step brother Enki. Given that the nation of Israel was Enlil’s chosen race of mankind, the “other Anunnaki” clearly were the Enkites. In short, Terah initially worshipped Enki or his son Marduk secondarily. In fact, even Abraham and Nahor (the brother, not the grandfather as the two shared the same name) at some stage worshipped Enki too as we shall soon unpack.
In the original version of JOSHUA 24:2, the term “Stream” is used instead of Euphrates. That can be easily explained. According to the authoritative Strong’s Concordance, the term Stream primarily referred to major water bodies, especially the Nile and Euphrates rivers. Indeed, in GENESIS 15:18, the river Euphrates is directly referred to as “The Great Stream”. The term “Stream” also referred to a river in flood. Now, how come that Terah initially worshiped Enki when his forefathers such as Eber were devout Enlilites?
First, let us appreciate the fact that ancient India was Enkite-dominated although it was never officially overseen by an Enkite god. The Rig Veda, one of the oldest sacred books of India, refers to a race of beings called the Nagas. The Nagas were known as the “Serpent People” because they worshipped Enki, the Serpent of Genesis. As we keep saying time and again, “serpent” originally did not have the unsavoury meaning it is invested with by Christendom today – that of a foul being, the Devil, who assumed the form of a snake in the Garden of Eden.
The term serpent meant a “royal race” and is derived from the ancient word Surbah, rendered sarpa in Sanskrit, the language of ancient India, and serpens in Latin. The fact that ancient India was predominantly Enkite-inclined explains why Inanna failed to bring it firmly under her control when she ruled it and why Enlil authorised the use of nuclear bombs there on Harappa and Mohenjo Daro – the cities which had the largest concentration of the Nagas – in the Mahabharata War.
According to the Rig Veda, the Nagas were led by Ahi, who fought Indra (Inanna) in the Mahabhrata War. In his book, Nagas, the Ancient Rulers of India, Naval Viyogi says Ahi belonged to a lineage of ruler-priests stemming from Sumer and that the Nagas god was known as Shiva, or Naga Natha, meaning “Serpent Lord”. It goes without saying that this was Enki. The religious symbol of the Nagas was the cobra, which was also the religious symbol of the Egyptian pharaohs, who were under Enki’s jurisdiction.
The Nagas, also variously called Sarpa or Dravidians, are described as “dark-skinned with flat noses”, typical African features. Esoterically, the term Nagas meant “Wise Man” and we know that the Anunnaki God of Wisdom was Enki. The Book of Dzyan says the Nagas worshipped a “serpent race which descended from the skies and taught mankind”. Once again, this was Enki’s clan: Enki originated from the Orion star system and his ancestry evolved from a snake species as we explicated in our earlier articles. The same ancient Indian texts say the Nagas and the Aryans (demigods who were predominantly Enlilites) intermarried (with a view to forging peaceful co-existence), giving rise to Kings. It were these intermarriages that produced the likes of Terah and Abraham.
Thus Terah, or one of his forbearers up the family tree, was a cross-breed between an Enlilite/Aryan and an Enkite/Nagas but he chose to side with the Enkites, just as Jesus would later do. As Krishna the holy man, the Jesus of ancient India, Terah preached tender Enkite values as opposed to hard-line Enlilite values. This is the reason Genesis, which is an Enlilite document, pans him as worshipping “other gods”.
OF EWES, JEWS, AND SHEEP
The Abrahamic Jews, or Brahmin Jews, came to be known as Hebrews. How did the name Hebrews come about? There are all sorts of fanciful theories by many a historian. This is because mainstream historians have totally ignored the most authoritative source on the saga of the Anunnaki and by extension the Hebraic Jews. Now, I so particularise because Jews never were one homogeneous race nor did they originate from one single place.
There were black Jews, white-skinned Jews, and even brown-skinned Jews, just as is the case in our day. Each of these shades of Jews came from different and in some cases overlapping places of origin. Black Jews mainly came from Africa (which included today’s Arabia and all the countries to the south of Arabia) but also from India. White Jews came from India mainly but also from Sumer, particularly Ur. Brown-skinned Jews came from India in the main.
It is in our present day that Jews are arbitrarily and misleadingly posited as white-skinned people or brown-skinned people (Sephardic Jews – Jews who look like Arabs) only. Israel actually decided to correct this distortion when in 1991 it officially recognised the dark-skinned Falashas of Ethiopia as Jews and airlifted them to Israel though fairer-skinned Israelites continue to discriminate against them and call them all sorts of names.
Just to reiterate a point we have already underscored, Jews were ewes, or sheep. Enlil called his human subjects sheep. In some scriptures, the term sheep and ewe are in fact used interchangeably, such as SONG OF SONGS 6:6, where the word used in the New American Standard Bible (NASB) is ewes, whereas the one used in both the King James Version (KJV) and the Biblos Interlinear Bible (NIT, my favourites) is sheep. Certainly, “Ewes” and “Jews” so swimmingly rhyme. Remember, the letter J was introduced into the alphabet sometime in the 1600s AD.
Even the King Kames Version, which was first published in 1611, did not contain the letter J at all. All words or names that today begin with the letter J began with either the letter Y or I prior to the 1600s, so that Jesus was Ieosous, Jacob was Yaakov, James was Iames, Judas was Yehuda, and Jehovah was Yahweh.
We should also be wary that we do not lose sight of the fact that the term sheep or Jew as applied to Enlil’s chosen people took hold in the Age of Aries ( 2220-60 BC) during the time of Abraham. This was between 4000 and 3100 BC, in the Age of Taurus. Prior to that, mankind was never referred to as sheep: we were simply Lulu-Amelus, a worker race meant to toil for the Anunnaki. But Hebrews had been there from since before the Deluge. That brings us back to the question we posed at the outset of this section: how did the name Hebrews arise?
WHO ARE THE HEBREWS?
The Hebrews, as we now know, constitute part of a people we call Jews. But exactly who were the Hebrews? The name of a people or a nation-state can arise from various premises. They include a founding father; a surpassing icon; a national landmark; a faith leader; a dominant ethnic group; and sheer geographical setting. For instance, the Saudis (of Saudi Arabia) are named after Muhammad Ibn Saud, the country’s pioneer leader. The name “Columbians” was inspired by the legendary Spanish explorer Christopher Columbus.
Zambians derive their name from the Zambezi River. The name ‘Salvadorians” (of El Salvador) is in honour of Jesus Christ: the country’s official name when translated to English reads, “Province of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of the World”. Ugandans are such courtesy of the highly influential Baganda tribe, just as “Batswana” reflects the dominance of the Tswana-speaking ethnic group. South Africans are so-called because their country is located in the southernmost part of the continent of Africa.
In the case of the Hebrews, they derive their name from a place of origin. This is Nippur in Sumeria. Nippur (modern Nuffar in southeastern Iraq) was Enlil’s cult city in Sumeria. It was one of the first seven cities the Anunnaki, the Old Testament gods, established on Earth when they arrived on the planet about 450,000 years ago. However, the Anunnaki did not call it Nippur: they called it Nibruki, meaning “Earth’s Crossroads”, or simply Ni-Ibru, meaning “The Crossing Place”. In Akkadian, the father of the Hebrew language, Nibruki/Ni-Ibru was rendered as Nippur.
Nibruki was so named because, first, it was at the geographical centre of southern Sumer, the hub of the whole of Mesopotamia, meaning “Land Between Two Rivers” (the Euphrates and Tigris) as ancient Iraq was known. Second, it was the place where the pre-Diluvial aeronautical grids that guided sky vehicles in flight crisscrossed each other. The denizens of Nibruki called themselves the Ibri, meaning, in paraphrase, “Natives of the Crossroads City”.
It was the Sumerian term Ibri which gave rise to Ibrim or Ibriyyim, which is Hebrews in English. In Setswana, a languages which is so breathtakingly akin to Sumerian, Ibrim would be rendered as Ma-Ibri (“The Ibri”) since unlike Hebrew, which places the noun indicator (in this case “im”) at the end of a word, in Setswana the noun indicator is placed at the beginning of the word.
At least one of Abraham’s forefathers was directly named after Nibruki. This was Eber, a variation of Ibri. That could suggest that it was during the time of Eber that the family’s association with Nippur began and as we have indicated above, Nippur was no city of ordinary significance. It was practically Earth’s capital in that the most powerful man on the planet, Enlil, was based there. And as a religious centre and therefore a consecrated city, Nippur was the Vatican of the day.
So what point are we trying to put across? It is that the Hebrews existed long before they became Jews, that is, Enlil’s sheep. Their origin was Nippur/Nibruki/Ni-Ibru in Sumeria. They became Enlil’s chosen sheep in the time of Abraham but they were designated as such in the era of Abraham’s father Terah. Yet Terah was not born in Sumer: he was born in ancient India. In fact, Terah’s Hebrews had such an overriding cultural influence on India that the Indian language has very striking similarities with Hebrew.
HEBREW CONNECTION TO INDIA
According to Genesis, Eber had two sons, Peleg and Joktan. Of Joktan’s 13 sons, the second last was Havilah. It appears that Havilah and his clan were the founders of India. The Jewish Encyclopaedia informs us that ancient traditions identify India as Havilah. The Book of the Cave of Treasures, written in the 6th century, also says, “And the children of Havilah appointed to be their king Havil, who built Havilah, that is, Hend”. In 6th century Europe, India was called Hend. Indeed, even today, there is a region in India known as Nagar Haveli.
GENESIS 2:10-11 says, “And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. The name of the first is Pishon: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold.” The legendary Jewish historian Flavius Josephus identified Pishon with the Ganges River, India’s largest river in terms of water flow. Writing in the 2nd century, Pausanias the Periegete said, “The Indians have an enormous amount of gold”.
Eden (Sumeria, in modern Iraq predominantly) and India of course were 3750 km apart but we should bear in mind that Genesis was written in the 6th century BC, when the Jews were in captivity in Babylon, and its writers, the Levites, decided to incorporate India into Sumeria for one reason only – to furnish the hint that the Jewish people originally straddled both India and Sumeria. In order to familiarise with his paternal heritage, a young Jesus (see The Jesus Papers) was sent not to Iraq but to India because India was the ancestral place of Father Abraham.
The similarities between Indian and Hebrew are telling. We will cite only a few examples. In Hebrew, the Jews are Yehudi; in India is a tribe known as Yutiya/Yahkhuda. Yutiya very much sounds like Judea. When it comes to the names of God in Hindu Shaivism and Judaism, they are basically the same. Where Judaism says El Shaddai, Shaivisim says Saday, a variant of Shiva, a Hindu deity. In Hebrew, Hebrews are Ibri, whereas in Indian, they are Abri. The Yadavas, a seemingly proto-Hebraic peoples still living in India today, say once they spoke a language called Abhiri (Hebrew) or Sabari. Today, Israeli Jews whose roots sink deep into Israeli soil are called Sabaras.
Today, the Brahmins of India, who sit at the apex of the country’s caste system, proudly refer to themselves as “The Chosen People of God” and as a “Community of Priests”. This is exactly the way the Jews also characterise themselves. They say they are “God’s Chosen People” and they have since days immemorial been the veritable “Kingdom of Priests”. The parallels are striking folks.
NEXT WEEK: ABRAHAM COMES INTO BEING
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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.