Hebrews Seize Egypt
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Benson C Saili
THIS EARTH, MY BROTHER
Hyksos usurp power under General Abraham and in heed of Jehovah’s grand scheme of things
The captured Marduk saw out the entire 24 years in forced exile, adamant that there was simply no way he was going to sign up to the Enlilite skullduggery of a fake monotheism – getting mankind to believe they were dealing with only one God called Anki when in truth that god was no more than a mere spokesman for the larger Anunnaki agenda for mankind and of which the Anunnaki top brass themselves were not entirely in one accord.
Meanwhile, the Babylonians could not desist from wondering what was it that had befallen their beloved god. Why should the planet’s seniormost god fall victim to such a fate? When Jehovah-Enlil was Earth’s Commander-in-Chief, he was never violated in like manner once. Why Marduk? Was Enlil still wielding executive power behind the scenes? Whatever the case, the Babylonian populace never gave up on their god.
They were aware he was safe wherever he was being held and they continued to pay homage to him by way of pilgrimages to his sacred precinct, the Esagil, and render prayers. These prayers were answered in 1571 BC, for in that very year, which marked Marduk’s 24 years of captivity, a warrior tribe known as the Kassites descended on the district of Terka along the Euphrates river, laid siege to Hana, the city Marduk was held captive in, freed him, and returned him to Babylon, where he was welcomed like a conquering hero by a sea surge of singing and dancing subjects.
At the time, the Hittites, who had seized Marduk in 1595 BC at the orders of their national god Ishkur-Adad for his refusal to pander to the sham monotheistic agenda, were a mighty fighting force. They had attained imperial status, with their domains reaching as far afield southwards as the biblical Canaan and therefore incorporating the two space-related sites of the Landing Place at Baalbek and the post-Diluvial Mission Control Center at Jerusalem. Their control of Canaan made it a bulwark against possible seizure by Enkite-dominated Egypt.
But the Kassites albeit managed to tame the Hittites. It’s not clear from whence the Kassites sprang: they did however express a great affinity for Babylonians. In the famous El Armana letters, their king referred to the Egyptian pharaohs as “my brother”, in all probability to underscore the fact that both kings and their peoples shared the same god in Marduk.
Unlike the Hittites, who seized Marduk and left Babylon to its own devices, the Kassites did not simply restore Marduk to power: they took over the rulership of Babylon, thus putting an end to the First Dynasty of Babylon which had reached the height of its power under the legendary Hammurabi. They were to dominate Babylon for the next 400 years. That this time period coincided with direct Hykso rule of northern Egypt was no mere coincidence.
JEHOVAH COUNTRIVES EGYPT COUNTER-PENETRATION
It’s perhaps imperative that we at this juncture recap on Hykso rule in Egypt and how it came to be, a theme we have dwelt upon in reasonable detail in an earlier piece but which we will here briefly set down once again for the sake both of newcomers to this column and dot-connection. When Abraham, who was born in Nippur in 2123 BC, was 12 years old (in 2111 BC), his father Terah sent him to India, his (Terah) birthplace, to assume the role of the region’s spiritual father. Abraham was to pick up from where Terah, known in India as Hara-Krishna, had left off in evangelistic and ecclesiastical crusading circa 2140 BC.
Abraham was in India for 12 years. During this period, Enlil-Jehovah devised a strategy to counter-penetrate Egypt given the population explosion of the Canaanites (who were Enkites) in Canaan, which was legal Enlilite territory, just as Egypt was legal Enkite territory. To attain this end, he used the Hebrews who lived in a part of India known as Maturea as the instrument of infiltration. These Hebrews were to leave India and set course for Egypt under the concocted pretext that they were fleeing oppression from the powers that be or that they had been expelled for one reason or the other.
The Egyptians, who were overwhelmingly Bantu, took the bait hook, line and sinker. They gladly received the Matureans with typical Enkite hospitality and in order to help them preserve their cultural identity, they allotted to them an own settlement in northern Egypt known as Goshen. The Matureans took the liberty of renaming it Maturea as a constant reminder of their place of origin.
At the same time, the Matureans began to call themselves Hyksos (Hyk-Ku), which literally meant “Princely Sheep” but which was typically interpreted as “Shepherd Kings”. Like the rest of the Hebrew race, the Matureans had been designated “God’s Sheep” by Enlil. Since Enlil at the time was the foremost Anunnaki god on Earth, it meant the Hebrews were Earth’s “Elite Sheep” or “Elite Ewes”. The term ewes (“Jews” in modern-day parlance) as we have already explained was the ancient term for sheep. Thus Hebrews, Hyksos, Jews, and Israelites were simply alternative designations for the same people.
Meanwhile, circa 2099 BC, Abraham’s brother Harran died in Ur. Abraham, Harran, and Nahor were born in the same year to the same father Terah but to three different mothers. Their basically simultaneous conception was the result of a long-term strategy by Jehovah-Enlil to produce the Shepherd-King (that is, the Chief Sheep, or human leader of Enlil’s human flock) of the forthcoming Age of Aries with a view to contend with Marduk, who was the legally designated ruler of that Age. That way, the odds that at least one of the three offspring would be a boy were enhanced. Enlil got more than he bargained for as all three turned out to be boys. However, it was Haran who arrived first, followed by Abraham. Accordingly, Haran was tipped as the future Shepherd-King of the forthcoming Age of the Ram.
COMMENCEMENT OF HYKSO RULE IN EGYPT
Now that Haran was no more, Enlil chose Abraham to replace him as the future Shepherd-King, at the expense of Haran’s heir Lot, an injustice that was to remain a sore point with the descendants of Lot, who now and again waged war against Abraham’s descendants for the control of the bequest known as Canaan. According to Enlil’s well-laid down plans, Abraham was to join his fellow Hyksos in Egypt at an appropriate time and use Goshen as the springboard from which to seize power from the reigning pharaoh.
Why? Because in line with Enlil’s wishes, Abraham and his progeny were to take possession of all the lands “east of the Nile River all the way to the River Euphrates”. In terms of the modern-day setup, that would include half of Egypt and the whole of Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq. To amply prepare him as a future conqueror, Abraham was trained as an elite warrior by Ninurta, the Anunnaki’s god of war. He would become the greatest military general of his day.
Thus it was that in 2047 BC, General Abraham thrust into northern Egypt, rallied the Hykso population at Goshen, and matched on Memphis, the most powerful city in northern Egypt, resulting in his becoming northern Egypt’s first Hykso Pharaoh. Northern Egypt was all the more prestigious because the Giza pyramids, a space-related landmark, were located there. Abraham ruled under the title Pharaoh Mehibre Kheti, the latter name meaning “Chosen One” to underline the fact that he was his god’s chosen Shepherd-King of the Age of Aries. His seizure of northern Egypt happened at a most opportune time, when Marduk, the god of Egypt, had cleverly being lured out of Egypt by Ishkur-Adad and was now based in Harran in the Middle East.
NORTHERN EGYPT’S NEW BUT UNOFFICIAL NAME BECAME I-SIRA-EL, MEANING, “EL’S SHIELD”. El was how Nannar-Sin, Jehovah’s second-born son, was called in Canaan, his Enlilite sphere of influence. Northern Egypt was El’s shield because it was a sort of Iron Curtain meant to ward off Egyptian forays into Canaan and therefore deny them direct access to the all-important shems, the rockets, at the Tilmun spaceport in the Sinai Peninsula.
Early in 2046 BC, Abraham contrived an official visit to Mentuhotep I, the black Pharaoh who ruled southern Egypt and was based in Thebes, that region’s capital. During the visit, he posed as a priest and merchant as Mentuhotep had never met him in person. To get Mentuhotep to be favourably disposed toward him, he introduced his dazzlingly beautiful wife Sarah as his sister and soon a smitten Mentuhotep had made her his concubine wife. Meanwhile, Abraham was gathering vital intelligence with the help of Sarah and before long he had struck: Mentuhotep was overthrown and Abraham had become the undisputed King of Egypt. It was at this juncture that the term Hyksos was adulterated to Heqa Khasut by the indigenous Egyptians, meaning “Foreign Occupiers”.
But in 2041 BC, Enlil recalled Abraham from Egypt as he was needed to safeguard the spaceport in the Sinai Peninsula, whose seizure was being plotted by the irrepressible Inanna-Ishtar using a Mesopotamian alliance of four kings. Abraham was not sure how long his mission would take to accomplish so he handed over the rulership of Egypt to Sarah, who was to reign indefinitely as Pharaoh Serahetawy Intef. Arriving in Canaan, Abraham did manage to heroically repel the enemy on behalf of Enlil and therefore prevent the spaceport from being overrun by Inanna.
Whilst Abraham lingered in Canaan, Sarah was overthrown in 2040 BC and the black indigenous Egyptians were back in power. Abraham quickly rushed back to mount a counter revolution. He managed to regain only northern Egypt, the bastion of the Hykso people. From that point on, he and Sarah jointly ruled northern Egypt till the year 2024 BC, when Abraham was again recalled by Enlil to base himself in Canaan to see to it that a charging Marduk and his son Nabu did not come anywhere near the Sinai spaceport.
ISAAC AN ADOPTED SON OF ABE
Who ruled northern Egypt whilst Abraham was in Canaan? The answer is not straightforward. What we can be sure of is that it wasn’t Sarah again given what had transpired last time around. It was most likely a care-taker ruler with proven military credentials. What we know for certain thanks to Egyptian records is that Abraham was in due course succeeded by his son Isaac, Shesi in Egyptian, who took the throne name of Pharaoh Mehibre II.
The saga of Isaac as related in the Bible is far from factual: it smacks of a deliberately contrived red-herring. According to Genesis, Isaac was born in Canaan. That is simply not true. Isaac was born in southern Egypt. Moreover, contrary to what Genesis would have you believe, Isaac was not Abraham’s biological son: he was conceived when Sarah was Pharaoh Mentuhotep II’s concubine. It is the real reason he is called Isaac, Itzhak in Hebrew, meaning “a laughing stock” in that he was technically a bastard child.
But since Sarah had Isaac in the context of a high-stakes Abrahamic scheme to grab the Egyptian throne, and not by way of sheer adultery, Abraham was under obligation to accept Isaac as his own son. In any case, Isaac was born to Sarah, Abraham’s half-sister wife, and succession to the throne was traced through the half-sister-wife and not any other.
It is crystal-clear, however, that Abraham was not as emotionally invested in Isaac as he was in Ishmael, his flesh-and-blood child. The Bible says Ishmael was 13 years older than Isaac, but that is a stretch: he was at most 2 years older. For if Abraham became Pharaoh of northern Egypt in 2047 BC and hitched Hagar either in that year or early the following year, and Sarah conceived Isaac from Mentuhotep in 2046 itself, the year he was overthrown by Abraham, then Isaac was most likely born in 2045 BC.
Again contrary to what Genesis would have you believe, Ishmael was not born to Sarah’s slave: according to The Book of Adam, his mother, Hagar, was a member of the Egyptian nobility who had Pharaonic blood in them. It was of critical importance that Abraham marries an Egyptian woman if he was to win both the moral and political support of indigenous Egyptians.
The fact that Hagar was named (by Abraham) after the Hakar River, a notable river of India, the birthplace of Abraham’s father Terah, demonstrates quite clearly that Hagar was not of ordinary genetic pedigree. It made her nearly as important as Sarah, after whom a prominent India river, the Saraisvati, was named and of which the Hakar was a tributary. The long and short of the argument is that it was Ishmael who was Abraham’s biological son and naturally it was Ishmael he cherished more.
ADAD REJECTS THE ISAAC OFFERING
A story is told in Genesis whereby Abraham was asked to sacrifice his son Isaac to “God” as a test of unquestionable faith. Once again, the story is over-embellished and over-spiritualised. Firstly, the term used in the original Hebrew is not “God”: it is “Elohim”, which was a blanket term for the Anunnaki’s ruling pantheon. In this case though, it was only the Enlilite pantheon, represented by Ishkur-Adad, as since Marduk came to power, the original pantheon, which comprised of Enkites and Enlilites, had disbanded.
Secondly, Genesis skirts the real reason Abraham was under obligation to sacrifice his firstborn son to Enlil. The underlying reason is found in EXODUS 13:2 (“Sanctify to Me every firstborn, the first offspring of every womb among the sons of Israel, both of man and beast; it belongs to Me.”); EXODUS 22:29 (“You shall not delay the offering from your harvest and your vintage. The firstborn of your sons you shall give to Me.”); and NUMBERS 8:7 (“For every firstborn among the sons of Israel is Mine, among the men and among the animals …”).
Few Christians bother to read much of the Bible. As such, they are not aware that the very gods they worship, THE OLD TESTAMENT GODS, DEMANDED HUMAN SACRIFICE AS PLAINLY INDICATED ABOVE. The firstborn child in particular, more so a son, was to be presented to them as a sacrifice being the “first fruit” of one’s “produce”. This is pure vampirism and therefore outright Satanism. These are the Enlilites, the clan of Jehovah, we’re talking about folks, not the Enkites, who Enlilites had unjustly and calumniously dubbed “Devils’. They demanded the firstborn as he was typically the most precious child and one was supposed to give to the gods something they treasured the most.
But Abraham, who was one of only a few Earthlings who did not balk at arguing with and even pitting wits with his gods, was shrewd. Since he valued Ishmael, his firstborn and real son, greatly, he waited until Isaac, who was not his real child, was born before he rendered his sacrifice. According to the Bible, Adad commended Abraham for this gesture but that is the varnish that was put on the story. THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER WAS THAT ADAD REJECTED ISAAC AS A SACRIFICE BECAUSE ISAAC WAS NOT ABRAHAM’S FIRSTBORN SON, LEAST OF ALL HIS REAL SON: IT WAS ISHMAEL WHO WAS.
Accordingly, for failing Adad (read: for defying Adad), Abraham was to atone for that, to pay for the sin of both omission (not sacrificing the right child) and commission (bracing to sacrifice the wrong child). That’s how a ram came into the picture. The ram was not provided by Adad as the Bible suggests: gods did not provide sacrificial animals to their own subjects. A sacrifice was something one had to avail from his or her own personal resources.
One had to fend for themselves in this regard: otherwise, it would defeat the purpose of a sacrifice – something that made one feel the pinch of deprivation. Thus Abraham sacrificed his own ram to atone for his own sin against Adad. Remember, sacrificial animals saved two purposes. First, they were meant to cover for the sins one had committed against the gods. Second, they were meant as food for the gods as well as the priesthood.
The Anunnaki, however, had a clause that could exempt one from sacrificing their firstborn child. This was called a redemption clause. To redeem is to buy back: thus one could buy back their firstborn child (that is, have him/her spared from sacrificing to the gods) if they offered recompense to the gods to that effect. This was in the form of a sum of money. We find this in NUMBERS 18:14-17, which partly reads thus: “Nevertheless the firstborn of man you shall surely redeem … As to their redemption price, from a month old you shall redeem them, by your valuation, five shekels in silver, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, which is twenty gerahs.”
The above law, however, came into effect during the time of Moses, which was six hundred years or so later. Abraham therefore had no option but to surrender the soul of his son to the gods. Luckily, the son was spared and would live to a ripe old age. It seems, nonetheless, that Adad still begrudged Abraham for withholding Ishmael. FOR IT WAS WITH ISAAC THAT HE RENEWED THE COVENANT ABRAHAM HAD MADE WITH ENLIL – OF INHERITING LANDS FROM EGYPT TO THE EUPHRATES – AND NOT WITH ISHMAEL THE FAVOURITE SON. It did not matter that Isaac was neither Abraham’s firstborn son nor his biological son: what mattered was the inalienable fact that he was mothered by the half-sister-wife and it was the half-sister-wife who produced the heir to the throne.
NEXT WEEK: ESAU WARS AGAINST JACOB
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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.