Abraham the God-Man
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Benson C Saili
THIS EARTH, MY BROTHER
Terah commissions his son to India as Pope of the Region
Whilst the Bible does not categorically state that Harran was born earlier than Abraham, it does drop more than sufficient hints that that was the case. We will not, however, unpack in one fell swoop the full circumstantial details as to why Harran was senior to Abraham. We will be positing our argument portion by portion as the narrative progresses. As related last week, Haran was Terah’s firstborn; Abraham was the second-born; and Nahor II was third. The three were sired in the same year, 2123 BC, by the same father through different mothers.
The name Haran can be broken down into two components, Har, meaning “mountain”, and An, meaning “sky” or “the cosmos”. Haran could therefore be interpreted to mean “a giant”, or rather “colossus,” that is, “a great man”, or “a towering figure”. The reason he was so named is obvious enough: as Terah’s firstborn, he was meant to be Enlil’s Righteous Shepherd in accordance with Enlil’s geopolitical designs. In other words, he was to be the Priest-King of Earthlings, or Melchizedek.
That Haran had been earmarked as a future colossus can partly be gleaned from the establishment of the city of Harran, which was named after him. Normally, places are named after people who once were great, e.g. Washington in the US, which was named after General George Washington, the country’s founding president. In the case of Terah’s son Haran, the city of Harran was named after him while he was still a youngster. If you recall, the city of Harran was built by Nannar-Sin at the instruction of Enlil before Haran was born.
Initially, it was simply known as “Ur away from Ur”, that is, the Second Ur. But following Haran’s birth, Ur away from Ur now became known as Harran. That the city was dedicated to Haran before he had done anything great bears out the fact that as Enlil’s prospective Priest-King, Haran was destined to be greater than Abraham in the fullness of time, a laurel befitting of a firstborn. As for Nahor II, his name does not need much explication. He was named after his grandfather Nahor I, the father of Terah.
Yet of Terah’s children (he had several others in addition to those mentioned in Genesis), it is Abraham who is the most famous. But as we shall soon demonstrate, he was not meant to be a man of such renown: his fame came at the expense of his elder brother Haran. How that state of affairs came to be again we enjoin you to be patient and wait for the appropriate time.
Although he is best known as Abraham, that was not his original name: Abraham was a name he was given later in life when he was about 100 years old. His given name when he was born in 2123 BC was Abram. But again, that is not unimpeachably correct. Abram is simply the Hebrew version of his actual Sumerian name. His Sumerian name, the name he was given when he was born, was Ibru-um.
The name can be interpreted in at least three ways. First, he may have been named after one of his forefathers, Eber, which can also be written as Ibri or Ibru. Second, he possibly was dedicated to the great city of Nippur, where he was born. Nippur as we explained last time around was the Akkadian name for Enlil’s cult city, which was known as Nibruki (“Earth’s Crossroads”) or simply Ni-Ibru (“The Crossing Place”) in Sumerian. Thirdly, he probably was named after his race, who were known as Ibri, or Hebrews in English.
Even in our day, we do encounter people who are named after their own tribe, their country, or even a famed city. For example, we all know who Paris Hilton and Paris Jackson are. I have a brother-in-law here in Botswana known as Bakwena. There are a lot of people whose surname is French, England, Ndebele, etc. So we should not be surprised as to how Abraham’s original name came about.
EXIT NINURTA STRATEGY, ENTER SIN TACTIC
Meanwhile, a number of developments in Sumer had caused Enlil considerable concern. With the withdrawal of Ninurta from the rulership of Sumer-Akkad, Inanna-Ishtar had become bothersome again. In her recent rally using Utu-Hegal, she had been tamed but there was no guarantee that she would never cause trouble again. But Enlil’s greatest headache at this juncture was Marduk’s rock-star popularity. No matter what counter-strategies the Enlilites came up with, Marduk’s sway over the Earthly masses just kept soaring. It was a harrowing state of affairs that gave Enlil endless nightmares.
As a last-ditch demolition act, Enlil decided to employ the “Sin Tactic”. The Ninurta Strategy, whereby Ninurta was called upon to oversee Sumer, had worked splendidly but it had not inflicted the merest dent in Marduk’s popularity. The Sin Tactic was certain to reverse much of Marduk’s gains in the popularity stakes, so Enlil reckoned. “Then Enlil, with Anu consulting, kingship in the hands of Nannar deposited,” say the Sumerian records. “To Urim, in whose oil the divine Heavenly Bright Object (Shuhadaku) remained implanted, kingship for the third time was granted.”
Nannar-Sin, Enlil’s second-born son, did bear attributes that prima facie stood to endear him to the Earthling masses. Unlike Marduk, who was born on the throne planet of Orion, Sin was born on Earth, the first Anunnaki to have done so. It was for this reason he liked to refer to himself as “The Firstborn of All Creation”, creation in this context meaning Earthlings (he was born before Enki fashioned Adam). Sin was also in large part a peaceful god. He had never taken part in all the wars that had taken place to date between the Enlilites and the Enkites.
In Sumer, Sin was in fact the most popular god: he and his wife Ningal were one of the most adored Enlilites. Surely, Enlil reasoned, Sin would make a more effective foil against Marduk if he was to be entrusted overall rulership of Sumer-Akkad as Earthlings would read that as the beginning probably of an unprecedented era of peace and prosperity given that Sin was also an excellent economic manager.
This was not the first time Sin had been considered for this perch. He had ruled Sumer before but only as a ceremonial sovereign. This time around, he was going to be the executive god of Sumer-Akkad. It would be interesting to see how he fared in the hearts of Earthlings vis-a-vis Marduk in this dispensation.
SIN’S SIN: THE MONEY ECONOMY
The Era of Sin, which commenced in 2113 BC, has been described as “one of the most glorious in Sumerian annals”. During the next 100 years, Sin ruled illustriously and distinctively. At his accession to the throne of Sumer-Akkad, he had set out to turn his cult city, Ur (Urim in full, meaning “Urban domesticated place”), into Sumer-Akkad’s commercial and manufacturing hub, which he indeed did. Situated along the Euphrates River and between Eridu to the south and Uruk in the north, Ur now became Sumer-Akkad’s capital city for the third time, the reason it was referred to at this juncture as Ur III.
Sin and Ningal were not simply arm-chair sovereigns: they were hands-on. Because of their assiduity, they fully revitalised Ur, whose greatness had long waned. Besides making Ur a trade behemoth and the factory of Sumer, they turned it into the granary of Sumer and the garment centre of the ancient Near-East, not to mention other material and cultural advancements. “Foreign trade by land and water made the merchants of Ur remembered for millennia thereafter,” writes Zechariah Sitchin.
In order to further fortify the city against susceptibility to attack, Sin built a ring of a navigable canal around the city wall which served two major harbours. “It was a city whose white houses – many of them multistoried – shone as a pearl from a distance; whose streets were straight and wide, with many a shrine at their intersections: a city of an industrious people with a smooth-functioning administration; a city of pious people, never failing to pray to their benevolent deities.”
The city was a riot of “multilevel private dwellings, workshops, schools, merchants’ warehouses, and stalls – all in wide streets where, at many intersections, prayer shrines open to all travellers were built.” Sin’s skyscraping ziggurat, his temple residence, would have ranked as one of the world’s seven wonders of the day. “Ur’s epitome and hallmark was the grand ziggurat built there for Nannar-Sin – a monumental edifice that, though lying in ruins for almost four thousand years, still dominates the landscape and awes the viewer by its immensity, stability, and intricacy,” says Zechariah Sitchin.
Because of its sophistication and grandeur, Ur became the very archetype of a city and a synonym of prosperity and wellbeing. The term “Ur” in time came to mean “The City” as uttered with a sigh of admiration and incredulity. It is from Ur, the urban jewel of the ancient lands, that we get the English word “urban” as indeed urban areas are meant to be more infrastructurally superior to rural areas. Sumer soared to dizzying economic heights under the lordship of Nannar-Sin. Let’s listen to Sitchin once again:
“Under the active guidance of Nannar and his spouse Ningal, Sumer attained new heights in art and sciences, literature and urban organisation, agriculture and industry and commerce. Sumer became the granary of the Lands of the Bible, its wool and garment industries were in a class by themselves, its merchants were the famed Merchants of Ur.”
A question is always asked: how did money creep into commerce? Well, the dude who introduced the money economy on planet Earth was Nannar-Sin. Money wasn’t necessary: we didn’t need it: barter was sufficient for the purpose. But Sin, today known as Allah in Islam, introduced money to employ it as a tool for the enslavement of mankind. A peaceful god, Sin wanted to control mankind not through arms but through trade and that almost inescapable albatross known as debt.
As the prototypical Reptilian Mayer Amschel Rothschild candidly and truthfully put it, “Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes the laws”. America and much of the world are indebted to the Rothschilds because they control the reserve banks of the world’s most economically advanced countries. This servitude has filtered down to you, me and the other fellow: the Rothschilds folks have us both by the scruff of our necks and by our balls because they control, directly and indirectly, all the currencies of the world and all this thanks to the sin of Sin. This Earth, My Brother…
UR-NAMMU IS INTERIM KING OF SUMER
In the same year Nannar-Sin was appointed god of Sumer-Akkad by Enlil, he ordered Terah to move from Nippur to Ur. Terah was to perform the functions of a high priest in Sin’s temple. At the same time, he was to double as the high priest of Nippur too, the first time ever the two city-states’ priesthood was conjoined. Even more important, he was to see to it that the people of Ur followed zodiacal time (the total time a constellation showed in the night sky) as opposed to celestial time (the total time [2160 years] a constellation was mathematically allotted). Terah took all his kids with him to Ur. Abraham and his two half-brothers were 10 years old at the time.
Since Sin’s time would be taken up with overseeing the affairs of all of Sumer-Akkad, and Terah would dedicate himself to ecclesiastical and astronomical/astrological affairs, he requested Enlil that an Earthling King be installed under his aegis. Enlil duly obliged. But this time around, the king was to be chosen by Enlil and recommended to King Anu in Nibiru for either approval or veto. This was to avoid sentimental appointments of kings by a god or goddess. A salutary lesson had been learnt from Inanna, who chose kings primarily on the basis that they were capable of satisfying her insatiable sexual appetite and not necessarily because they had monarchical potential.
The king Enlil chose for Ur and by extension the whole of Sumer was Ur-Nammu, a titular name meaning “The Joy of Ur”. Like all kings who came before him, Ur-Nammu had a qualifying pedigree. His father was a demigod and his mother was a full goddess, Ninsun, the daughter of Enki with his step-sister Ninmah. That made Ur-Nammu two-thirds divine.
It was significant that Ur-Nammu was the blood brother of a departed legend, Gilgamesh, who had wrought great feats of accomplishment as King of Uruk seven centuries prior. Clearly, Enlil’s choice of Ur-Nammu was driven by his underlying desire to make a Gilgamesh out of him. As important, Ur-Nammu was a fitting counterpoint to Nabu, Marduk’s heir: Nabu’s mother was a demigod whereas his father was a full god.
It should be noted that Ur-Nammu was no more than a stop-gap ruler. He simply was holding fort for Haran, Terah’s firstborn, who was only ten years old at the time. Once Haran had attained 30 years of age, he was to take over, in his case as Priest-King and not simply King. Pleased with Ur-Nammu’s credentials, King Anu gave the green light for his accession. He has gone into the Sumerian annals as the first ruler of Ur’s Third Dynasty.
ABRAHAM IN INDIA
Meanwhile, Terah was grooming his young sons for specialised responsibilities. Haran, the heir, was being moulded into a future Priest-King. As such, he was to keep to Ur and study up-close both his father’s and Ur-Nammu’s modus operandi. Abraham on the other hand was being moulded into a spiritual leader of the Diaspora. So when he turned 12, he was sent to the Indus Valley region, the vast Indian empire where Terah himself had been the spiritual leader before tracing his way back to Sumer circa 2140 BC.
Being the son of the pioneer spiritual leader, Abraham was welcomed with a lot of fanfare. He would in due course make an impact that was to rival that of his father. In India, Terah belonged to a priestly caste who were known as Brahmins, the religious noblemen. But it was Abraham who came to personify this caste, that was also known as the Kaul Devas (Holy Kalani, Kaul being the short form of Kalani, the name by which Hebrews were known in India) or simply Chaldees. He became known as the Brahma, meaning “God-Man”, (something akin to Jesus), like his father Terah was revered as when he was the Priest-King of Dwaraka before 2041 BC.
Initially though, Abraham did not worship Enlil, the Bible’s principal Jehovah. As a teenager, he worshipped Enki. Enki’s religion, which was known as the cult of the snake, was the most popular form of spirituality throughout the Indian empire. The cult of the snake was popularised by Intrasterestrial beings who were known as the Nagas. These beings were half-human, half-snake and were revered as gods. In due course though, term Nagas came to apply to full humans who reverenced the cult of the snake.
ASPECTS OF THE NAME ABRAHAM
The fact that Abraham experimented with several religious sects (like King Solomon) explains why his name came to mean several things depending on how the syllables were pronounced. First, he was the Pope, the “Holy Father” of his religious movement. This is Abhiram in Hindi (Ab = "Father;" Hir = "Head; Top; Exalted;” and Am = "People"). Abhiram can also be interpreted as “Father of the Exalted People”. Indeed, the Brahmin caste were the superior race of the day in India. They were white-skinned and very knowledgeable in many things, more so in religious philosophy.
The name Abraham according to Genesis was given to the man who was initially known as Abram when God told him he was going to be the “Father of a multitude”, the nation of Israel. That, however, is an evolutional meaning of the name Abraham, not the original meaning. In Hebrew, “Ab” means “Father” and “Ram”is the term for “a highly placed leader or governor”. Abram therefore means “Pope”. The Pope is at once a political leader of the Vatican, an independent country, and the spiritual leader of Catholics. Abraham was the political leader of a place in India known as Maturea, the Kingdom of the Oude (which rhymes with Yehuda, or Jews in English), as well as the spiritual leader of the Brahmin religion.
The name Abraham can be interpreted to mean “Father of Divine Mercy”given that in Kashmiri (the language spoken in Kashmir, which at the time of Abraham’s sojourn in India was dominated by Hebrews) “Raham”, which derives from “Ram”, means “Divine Mercy”. This is most fitting if Abraham was a spiritual leader as then he would have had the right to forgive sins just as the Pope does in our day. The equivalent of Raham in Hebrew is Rakham, which also means Divine Mercy.
The term Ab can also mean snake. “Abram” then would be interpreted as “Exalted Snake”. Since Abraham at some stage in his spiritual evolution worshipped Enki or Enkite gods (“other gods” in Genesis), he could have been called Abram to denote the fact that he was a high-standing Enkite. During this phase of his religious life, he was a renegade who had defected from the Aryan faith that reverenced Enlilites.
Thus the Aryans would have called him “A-brahm”meaning, “No Longer a Brahmin”as the prefix “a” sometimes denoted “opposed to” or “against”. Finally, Abraham or Abram may just have been a corruption in other tongues of his original Sumerian name Ibru-um. Thus we should not be so dogmatic about what the name Abraham meant as it throws up several shades of meaning.
NEXT WEEK: A BEREAVEMENT IN THE TERAH FAMILY
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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.