Hooked on Flesh and Blood
Columns
Benson C Saili
THIS EARTH, MY BROTHER
… and this is none other than Jehovah we’re talking about!
There are two diametrically opposed views on human sacrifice in the Hebrew Bible, familiarly known as the Old Testament. The first and the overwhelming view is pro- human sacrifice. The other view rails against human sacrifice. Now, contradictions in the Bible are more the norm than the exception. The reasons are manifold but we will cite only a few.
First, the Bible was not written by a steadfastly like-minded scribal team. It was written by different people who had one general premise but over which they had clashing positions or viewpoints. In some cases, especially in the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, several writers contributed to one book, e.g. Deuteronomy, and these writers did not bother overmuch about synchronising the overall drift and orientation of the narrative.
Scholars have identified at least four compound authors of the Pentateuch, who they have dubbed J (because he refers to his god as Jehovah), E (because he uses the plural term Elohim to refer to his god), D (the Deuteronomist) and P (the Priestly scribe). Of course the casual reader will scarcely notice this disaccord, but the scholar who has studied the Bible verse by verse will easily discern this.
Second, the stories we read in the Bible were documented over thousands of years (as fragments of or excerpts from other age-old texts), beginning with the Sumerian records. For instance, the first 25 chapters of Genesis were researched from Mesopotamian records written about 4000 years before Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament, was written. The first concerted efforts on the part of the Jews to compile the Hebrew Bible was done in the 7th century BC during the Babylonian captivity.
In the process, the source manuscripts were not left intact: some of the information they contained was edited out by the so-called redactors and perspectives which were deemed palatable with the times were interpolated into them. Third, the gods of the Old Testament as we have long demonstrated were the Anunnaki, Aliens from the Sirian and Orion star systems via the little-known planet of the Solar System known as Nibiru.
The dominant Anunnaki in the Bible are the Enlilites, the clan of Jehovah-Enlil, who until the astrological Age of Aries was Earth’s Chief Executive. The Enlilites were the hawk faction of the Anunnaki ruling pantheon. They were the diabolical faction vis-à-vis mankind. However, even they were not always in one accord. For example, Nannar-Sin, the second-born son of Enlil who later became the Allah of Islam, was the dove in the predominantly hawk faction. He was the only kind Enlilite.
Thus when you read of a god speaking against human sacrifice, rest assured that god is Nannar-Sin. If the Jewish scribes had referred to Anunnaki gods by their own individual names throughout, we would not have such ambiguity. But they used a blanket term, such as Yahweh or Adonai, as a result of which one can only glean an idea of which particular god is being talked about by cross-referencing with the more authoritative Sumerian records.
The gods themselves share the blame for this convoluted state of affairs. In Aries, the Enlilites, as we pointed out in earlier pieces, decided to pose as one unitary god before their chosen people, the Jews, whilst maintaining their individual identities behind the scenes. It explains why they no longer wished to be seen by Earthlings; only to be heard. In the post exilic era (from the time of the Exodus till the waning days of the astrological Age of Aries), the Enlilites were mostly represented by Ishkur-Adad, Enlil’s third-born son, before the Nation of Israel. Adad, as we shall demonstrate in due course, was the cruelest Enlilite after Enlil.
He was responsible for much of the evil perpetrated by “God” in the Old Testament. In the Sumerian records, it was Ninurta and Inanna-Ishtar, Enlil’s granddaughter, who were the prime evils. And the god who committed the world’s best-known and most outrageous act of genocide was Enlil, when he let mankind perish in their millions during the Deluge. This brings us to the matter of human sacrifice and why there are contending views about it in the Hebrew Bible.
There were scribes who thought since human sacrifice was a most egregious evil, it should not be presented as something decreed by God. As such, these scribes inserted passages in the original texts that gave the impression that actually God frowned on human sacrifice. But the more objective scribes were of the view that what the original manuscripts contained should stand irrespective of whether it portrayed God in a negative light. After all, God was God and he did not have to sanitise any extreme measure he took. That, in sum folks, is why you find some verses reporting that God was hooked on human sacrifice and others underscoring God’s condemnation of the act.
When you read the Bible, it is important that you take the bigger picture and not use an isolated incident as the basis of your inference. Focus on the sum total of what is being related to you and not on the contents merely of one verse, one chapter, or even one book. Above all, ensure you augment and buttress your understanding of the Bible with extra-biblical sources. For example, you would never grasp the creation story, that of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, and the great Flood of Noah’s day without reading the Sumerian chronicles or books on the Sumerian chronicles. You will never know who the gods of the Old Testament exactly were without being acquainted with what the Sumerian cuneiform clay tablets and cylinder seals say about these gods.
ADAD AND NINURTA FRONT-RUNNERS IN THE APPETITE FOR HUMAN FLESH
In the Bible, two gods are particularly associated with human sacrifice. The first goes by the generic name YAHWEH, or Jehovah. We by now know that Yahweh was a cover name, primarily, for the Enlilite godhead, which comprised of five kinsmen, namely Enlil-Jehovah (the father), Ninurta (the firstborn), Nannar-Sin (the secondborn), Ishkur-Adad (the last born), and Utu-Shamash (the grandson). But we also know that in the post-exilic era, the main Yahweh was Ishkur-Adad. Adad was also the meanest and vilest of the Yahwehs and human sacrifice was actually his staple. Needless to say, Adad is one of the two Yahwehs mostly associated with human sacrifice.
Adad’s notoriety for human sacrifice was well-known even in Mesopotamia, in modern-day Iraq. Clay-tablet texts unearthed in Mesopotamia and which have been dated to between the 10th and 7th centuries BC talk of burnt offerings of male children to “the god Adad”. It was Adad who instructed Abraham to sacrifice his son (GENESIS 22:22), though the Hebrew redactors recast the story in such a way that a ram was substituted for Abraham’s son.
Before the Israelites were liberated from Egyptian bondage, Adad demanded that they sacrifice their eldest sons as atonement for his indispensable role in winning their freedom. Once again, the Pentateuch scribes spun the story around to make it appear like it were the Egyptians who lost their sons at the hands of Adad’s “Angel of Death”.
Then at the Mount of the Elohim (Sinai or Horeb in the Bible) in Arabia’s Wilderness of Sin, Adad insisted that he was only going to address the Israelites in person if they made another mass human sacrifice. Given that the firstborn sons had already been sacrificed in Egypt, this time around it were the virgins who must have stepped into the breach. Indeed, EXODUS 19:18 does hint at the Mount Sinai sacrifice. It goes without saying that in the original texts, details to that effect did abound but were removed by later editors.
In Assyria, his main bastion as a god in Babylonian times, Adad was known by several names. One of these was Anammelek (Anu-Malik in the Assyrian language, meaning “chief deity”, which Adad was in Assyria). In 2 KINGS 17:31, we’re told that “the people of Sepharvaim (an Assyrian tribe that was relocated to Samaria after the Israelites were taken into Assyrian captivity) burned their own children as sacrifices to their god Anammelek”. The Anunnaki gods were very clever operators. ONE GOD (E.G. ADAD) WOULD PRESIDE OVER RIVAL NATIONS (E.G. THE ISRAELITIES AND CANAANITES) USING DIFFERENT NAMES AND WOULD EVEN CONDEMN THE PRACTICES OF “THE OTHER GOD” WHEN IN TRUTH HE AND THE OTHER GOD WERE ONE AND THE SAME PERSON.
The other god who was notorious for human sacrifice according to the Old Testament was BAAL-MOLECH, Baal (sometimes spelt Ba-El) simply meaning “The Lord”. Scholars have endlessly groped in the dark in their efforts to identify this god. I yet have to come across a single book or article that crisply nails him: they all make wild guesses. Most of them, brainwashed by the Bible’s Enlilite propaganda, even associate Molech with poor Marduk, a highly benevolent Enkite god was a darling of his direct subjects, notably the Babylonians and Egyptians, and who in the Age of Aries had replaced Jehovah-Enlil as Earth’s Chief Executive.
The Hebrew word translated Molech is actually MLK. This is MELEK when we put in the vowels as ancient Hebrew had no vowels. Originally, the term Melek (MALAK in Hebrew) meant a deputy, king, or emissary. The anglicised version of Melek is MICHAEL. According to the Sumerian records, the Book of Enoch, the Epistle of Jude, and Revelation, Michael was the warring archangel.
IN SUMERIAN RECORDS, THE ARCHANGEL (CHIEF REPRESENTATIVE OF A DEITY) MICHAEL WAS NINURTA, ENLIL-JEHOVAH’S FIRSTBORN SON AND THEREFORE THE HEIR APPARENT. I’m sure by now you know that Ninurta was the Anunnaki’s God of War. It was he who fought and vanquished “the Evil Zu” in an aerial battle and it was he who commanded the Enlilites when they warred against the Enkites in all the Pyramid Wars.
The god Molech, therefore, was Ninurta. He was based on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem, and at a place called Topeth in the Valley of Ge-Hinnom (Gehenna) just outside Jerusalem, he superintended over a huge fiery pit in which children were presented to him as a burnt offering. That’s why in the English version of the Bible, Gehenna is translated as “Hell” or “Lake of Fire”. This has nothing to do with an afterlife inferno: it all harps back to the literal hell the place was to the children of Israel.
The sacrificed children were said to have been “passed over” or “passed through” the fire in sacrifice to Molech. THIS IS THE REAL ORIGIN OF THE “PASSOVER” FEAST FOLKS, not the drivel you have been fed by the Pentateuch authors about God’s Angel of Death bypassing the homes of Israelites and zeroing in on those of Egyptians. Since Ninurta was so fixated on human sacrifice, the term Melek over time also assumed the meaning “sacrifice”.
“THE FIRSTBORN OF YOUR SONS YOU SHALL GIVE TO ME”
Human sacrifices were made to the Old Testament gods for any number of reasons. First, they stemmed from a standing order by a god that a human sacrifice be done as and when required. The case of Abraham in relation to his son Isaac in GENESIS 22:2 is one such example. In EXODUS 22:29, Adad makes it clear to the Israelites that, “The firstborn of your sons shall you give to me”.
In LEVITICUS 27:28, Adad emphasises that anything mankind set aside for him, whether this be an animal, agricultural produce, or “man” was not eligible for redemption (that is, could not be substituted for anything else). In EXODUS 22:29-30, Adad says, "The first offspring of every womb among the Israelites belongs to me, whether man or animal”. When it came to which tribe of the Nation of Israel the human sacrifice were to routinely come from, this was the tribe of Levi.
Adad had chosen them as the priestly tribe but there was a price to pay for this privillege: THEY WOULD BE THE MAIN TRIBE FROM WHICH HE WOULD HARVEST HUMAN SACRIFICES. This is what he says to that effect in NUMBERS 3:12-13: “I hereby accept the Levites from among the Israelites as substitutes for all the firstborn that open the womb among the Israelites. The Levites shall be mine, for all the firstborn are mine; when I killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, I consecrated for my own all the firstborn in Israel, both human and animal; they shall be mine. I am the LORD.”
In some situations, the god decreed a mass sacrifice as a punishment for being offended or somewhat displeasured by his people. For example, in EZEKIEL 20:26 (note: in properly translated versions and not in highly doctored ones such as the NIV and NLT), Adad boasts that he had the Israelites sacrifice their firstborns as burnt offerings to him to demonstrate to them that he was Yahweh who should never be defied! What crime did the Israelites commit?
They sacrificed children they had pledged to him to rival gods instead (EZEKIEL 16:20), who he dismissively denounced as “images”. These rival gods were not Enkites: they were fellow Enlilites but who were distant cousins being the sons of his older brother Nannar-Sin’s children with several concubines. (Sin had more than 80 children, the reason he was known as Aten, in this context meaning “Multiplying God”, in line with the injunction in Genesis that “Be fruitful and multiply”.)
There were cases, however, in which Kings or generals simply sacrificed their own children to kind of incentivise their god to dispense a blessing or simply show gratitude for a triumph in a battle or war. A classic example in this regard is that of Jephtah, an Israel judge (as leaders were called before the advent of King Saul, Israel’s first King) for six years, in JUDGES 11:29-40. This is the vow Jephtah made to Adad as he headed for a battlefield clash with the Ammonites, the descendants of Lot: “If you give the Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the LORD's, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering."
Jephtah did trounce the enemy all right, but guess who should be the first to meet him at the palace gates upon returning from the war? His virgin daughter and the only child. The story is tear-jerking as the ill-fated daughter pleaded with her father to give her a two-month “stay-of-execution” so her friends would have ample time to celebrate her existence and do their farewells.
Jephtah for one was deeply troubled by what had transpired but sadly a promise to a god, and by a leader in particular, was cast in stone: it could not be reversed. Exactly two months later, the poor daughter was delivered to Adad. Whether it was via a furnace or simply on a silver platter the Bible does not say. This Earth My Brother …
SIN’S HUMANE VOICE
Whereas Adad and Ninurta were the veritable vampires what with such a ready appetite for human flesh and human blood, Nannar-Sin was the polar opposite. Every time you hear Yahweh or Jehovah say something that is sober and rational, feel at liberty to assume it is the voice of Sin you were listening to. Remember, although Adad was the main Jehovah of the Exodus, he wasn’t the sole one. Once in a while, Sin took his position too. The Pentateuch authors however attributed every pronouncement by an Enlilite deity to simply one Yahweh, with the result that Yahweh comes across as a god with a split personality not once but multiple times.
Sin frowned upon human sacrifice. So in the following passages, it is either Sin who is talking behind the general façade of Yahweh, or the Jewish redactors themselves put words in Yahweh’s mouth:
DEUTERONOMY 12:31: “You shall not act thus toward Yahweh your Elohim, for every abhorrence which Yahweh hates they perform for their Elohim, for even their sons and their daughters they burn with fire for their Elohim. You shall not act thus toward Yahweh your Elohim, for every abhorrence which Yahweh hates they perform for their Elohim, for EVEN THEIR SONS AND THEIR DAUGHTERS THEY BURN WITH FIRE FOR THEIR ELOHIM.” Here, Sin was warning the Israelites about copying the ways of the Canaanites, who they would co-exist with when they entered Canaan.
DEUTERONOMY 18: 9-10: “When you come to the land that Yahweh your Elohim is giving to you (Canaan), you shall not learn to act according to the abhorrences of those nations (the Canaanites). There shall not be found among you one causing his son or his daughter TO PASS THROUGH FIRE.” In JEREMIAH 19:4-9, Adad promises to severely punish the Israelites for having “built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as offerings to Baal”.
This statement should be taken with a pinch of salt. There simply was no way Adad would have punished the Israelites for doing something he himself had instituted. Also, the god he was condemning here was his own brother Ninurta ( Baal-Molech) when the two were birds of the same figure. Clearly, the statement was an interpolation by Jewish scribes.
PSALM 106:48 (my favourite psalm) condemns human sacrifice. The psalms were written by several individual authors who did not have a uniform agenda. PSALM 82, for instance, which was written by a certain Asaph, is in fact a diatribe against the Anunnaki gods for pretending to be God (First Source) when in actual fact they too were mortal and would therefore die someday and be accountable to God. Thus the psalmist who condemned human sacrifice was making a indirect dig at Adad and company.
In 2 KINGS 16:3, King Ahaz of Judah is condemned for sacrificing his own children by way of a fiery furnace. No Jewish King reigned without the sanction of a god. Thus if Ahaz was into human sacrifice, it meant that that pleased his god, to whom the sacrifice was made. Once again, this passage is suspect. The case of King Josiah of Judah is a revelatory one. Josiah, who the Bible describes as a righteous king, did away with human sacrifices and got rid of all the priests who were at the centre of this barbarity (2 KINGS 23:5).
Jehovah (either Adad or Ninurta) bristled at this gesture, which he regarded as “opposing god”(2 CHRONICLES 35:21), and engineered his death in a battle at the tender age of only 38. Human sacrifice was Jehovah’s lifeline: you didn’t tamper with it and get away scotfree.
NEXT WEEK: SATAN WORSHIP IN TEN COMMANDMENTS
Columns
GONE FISHING
In recent years, using personal devices in working environments has become so commonplace it now has its own acronym, BOYD (Bring Your Own Device). But as employees skip between corporate tools and personal applications on their own devices, their actions introduce a number of possible risks that should be managed and mitigated with careful consideration. Consider these examples:
Si-lwli, a small family-run business in Wales, is arguably as niche a company as you could find, producing talking toys used to promote the Welsh language. Their potential market is small, with only some 300,000 Welsh language speakers in the world and in reality the business is really more of a hobby for the husband-and-wife team, who both still have day jobs. Yet, despite still managing to be successful in terms of sales, the business is now fighting for survival after recently falling prey to cybercriminals. Emails between Si-Iwli and their Chinese suppliers were intercepted by hackers who altered the banking details in the correspondence, causing Si-Iwli to hand over £18,000 (around P ¼ m) to the thieves. That might not sound much to a large enterprise, but to a small or medium business it can be devastating.
Another recent SMB hacking story which appeared in the Wall Street Journal concerned Innovative Higher Ed Consulting (IHED) Inc, a small New York start-up with a handful of employees. IHED didn’t even have a website, but fraudsters were able to run stolen credit card numbers through the company’s payment system and reverse the charges to the tune of $27,000, around the same loss faced by Si-Iwli. As the WSJ put it, the hackers completely destroyed the company, forcing its owners to fold.
And in May 2019, the city of Baltimore’s computer system was hit by a ransomware attack, with hackers using a variant called RobinHood. The hack, which has lasted more than a month, paralysed the computer system for city employees, with the hackers demanding a payment in Bitcoin to give access back to the city.
Of course, hackers target governments or business giants but small and medium businesses are certainly not immune. In fact, 67% of SMBs reported that they had experienced a cyber attack across a period of 12 months, according to a 2018 survey carried out by security research firm Ponemon Institute. Additionally, Verizon issued a report in May 2019 that small businesses accounted for 43% of its reported data breaches. Once seen as less vulnerable than PCs, smartphone attacks are on the rise, with movements like the Dark Caracal spyware campaign underlining the allure of mobile devices to hackers. Last year, the US Federal Trade Commission released a statement calling for greater education on mobile security, coming at a time when around 42% of all Android devices are believed to not carry the latest security updates.
This is an era when employees increasingly use their smartphones for work-related purposes so is your business doing enough to protect against data breaches on their employees’ phones? The SME Cyber Crime Survey 2018 carried out for risk management specialists AON showed that more than 80% of small businesses did not view this as a threat yet if as shown, 67% of SMBs were said to have been victims of hacking, either the stats are wrong or business owners are underestimating their vulnerability. A 2019 report by PricewaterhouseCoopers suggests the latter, stating that the majority of global businesses are unprepared for cyber attacks.
Consider that a workstation no longer means a desk in an office: It can be a phone in the back of a taxi or Uber; a laptop in a coffee shop, or a tablet in an airport lounge. Wherever the device is used, employees can potentially install applications that could be harmful to your business, even from something as seemingly insignificant as clicking on an accidental download or opening a link on a phishing email. Out of the physical workplace, your employees’ activities might not have the same protections as they would on a company-monitored PC.
Yet many businesses not only encourage their employees to work remotely, but assume working from coffee shops, bookstores, and airports can boost employees’ productivity. Unfortunately, many remote hot spots do not provide secure Wi-Fi so if your employee is accessing their work account on unsecured public Wi-Fi, sensitive business data could be at risk. Furthermore, even if your employee uses a company smartphone or has access to company data through a personal mobile device, there is always a chance data could be in jeopardy with a lost or stolen device, even information as basic as clients’ addresses and phone numbers.
BOYDs are also at risk from malware designed to harm and infect the host system, transmittable to smartphones when downloading malicious third-party apps. Then there is ransomware, a type of malware used by hackers to specifically take control of a system’s data, blocking access or threatening to release sensitive information unless a ransom is paid such as the one which affected Baltimore. Ransomware attacks are on the increase, predicted to occur every 14 seconds, potentially costing billions of dollars per year.
Lastly there is phishing – the cyber equivalent of the metaphorical fishing exercise – whereby cybercriminals attempt to obtain sensitive data –usernames, passwords, credit card details –usually through a phoney email designed to look legitimate which directs the user to a fraudulent website or requests the data be emailed back directly. Most of us like to think we could recognize a phishing email when we see it, but these emails have become more sophisticated and can come through other forms of communication such as messaging apps.
Bottom line is to be aware of the potential problems with BOYDs and if in doubt, consult your IT security consultants. You can’t put the own-device genie back in the bottle but you can make data protection one of your three wishes!
Columns
“I Propose to Diana Tonight”
About five days before Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed landed in Paris, General Atiku, a certain Edward Williams was taking a walk in a woods in the Welsh town of Mountain Ash. Williams, then 73, was a psychic of some renown. He had in the past foretold assassination attempts on US President Ronald Reagan, which occurred on March 30, 1981, and Pope John Paul II, which came to pass on May 13, 1981.
As he trudged the woods, Williams had a sudden premonition that pointed to Diana’s imminent fate as per Christopher Andersen’s book The Day Diana Died. “When the vision struck me, it was as if everything around me was obscured and replaced by shadowy figures,” Williams was later to reminisce. “In the middle was the face of Princess Diana. Her expression was sad and full of pathos. She was wearing what looked like a floral dress with a short dark cardigan. But it was vague. I went cold with fear and knew it was a sign that she was in danger.”
Williams hastily beat a retreat to his home, which he shared with his wife Mary, and related to her his presentiment, trembling like an aspen leaf as he did so. “I have never seen him so upset,” Mary recounted. “He felt he was given a sign and when he came back from his walk he was deeply shaken.”
The following day, Williams frantically sauntered into a police station to inform the police of his premonition. The officer who attended to him would have dismissed him as no more than a crackpot but he treated him seriously in view of the accuracy of his past predictions. He took a statement and immediately passed it on to the Special Branch Investigative Unit.
The report read as follows:
“On 27 August, at 14:12 hrs, a man by the name of Edward Williams came to Mountain Ash police station. He said he was a psychic and predicted that Princess Diana was going to die. In previous years, he has predicted that the Pope and Ronald Reagan were going to be the victims of assassination attempts. On both occasions he was proved to be correct. Mr Williams appeared to be quite normal.”
Williams, General, was spot-on as usual: four days later, the princess was no more.
Meanwhile, General, even as Dodi and Diana were making their way to the Fayed-owned Ritz Hotel in central Paris, British newspapers were awash with headlines that suggested Diana was kind of deranged. Writes Andrew Morton in Diana in Pursuit of Love: “In The Independent Diana was described as ‘a woman with fundamentally nothing to say about anything’. She was ‘suffering from a form of arrested development’. ‘Isn’t it time she started using her head?’ asked The Mail on Sunday. The Sunday Mirror printed a special supplement entitled ‘A Story of Love’; The News of the World claimed that William had demanded that Diana should split from Dodi: ‘William can’t help it, he just doesn’t like the man.’ William was reportedly ‘horrified’ and ‘doesn’t think Mr Fayed is good for his mother’ – or was that just the press projecting their own prejudices? The upmarket Sunday Times newspaper, which had first serialised my biography of the princess, now put her in the psychiatrist’s chair for daring to be wooed by a Muslim. The pop-psychologist Oliver James put Diana ‘On the Couch’, asking why she was so ‘depressed’ and desperate for love. Other tabloids piled in with dire prognostications – about Prince Philip’s hostility to the relationship, Diana’s prospect of exile, and the social ostracism she would face if she married Dodi.”
DIANA AND DODI AT THE RITZ
Before Diana and Dodi departed the Villa Windsor sometime after 16 hrs, General, one of Dodi’s bodyguards Trevor Rees-Jones furtively asked Diana as to what the programme for the evening was. This Trevor did out of sheer desperation as Dodi had ceased and desisted from telling members of his security detail, let alone anyone else for that matter, what his onward destination was for fear that that piece of information would be passed on to the paparazzi. Diana kindly obliged Trevor though her response was terse and scarcely revealing. “Well, eventually we will be going out to a restaurant”, that was all Diana said. Without advance knowledge of exactly what restaurant that was, Trevor and his colleagues’ hands were tied: they could not do a recce on it as was standard practice for the security team of a VIP principal. Dodi certainly, General, was being recklessly by throwing such caution to the winds.
At about 16:30, Diana and Dodi drew up at the Ritz Hotel, where they were received by acting hotel manager Claude Roulet. The front entrance of the hotel was already crawling with paparazzi, as a result of which the couple took the precaution of using the rear entrance, where hopefully they would make their entry unperturbed and unmolested. The first thing they did when they were ensconced in the now $10,000 a night Imperial Suite was to spend some time on their mobiles and set about touching base with friends, relations, and associates. Diana called at least two people, her clairvoyant friend Rita Rogers and her favourite journalist Richard Kay of The Daily Mail.
Rita, General, was alarmed that Diana had proceeded to venture to Paris notwithstanding the warning she had given Dodi and herself in relation to what she had seen of him in the crystal ball when the couple had consulted her. When quizzed as to what the hell she indeed was doing in Paris at that juncture, Diana replied that she and Dodi had simply come to do some shopping, which though partially true was not the material reason they were there. “But Diana, remember what I told Dodi,” Rita said somewhat reprovingly. Diana a bit apprehensively replied, “Yes I remember. I will be careful. I promise.” Well, she did not live up to her promise as we shall soon unpack General.
As for Richard Kay, Diana made known to him that, “I have decided I am going to radically change my life. I am going to complete my obligations to charities and to the anti-personnel land mines cause, but in November I want to completely withdraw from formal public life.”
Once she was done with her round of calls, Diana went down to the hair saloon by the hotel swimming pool to have her hair washed and blow-dried ahead of the scheduled evening dinner.
THE “TELL ME YES” RING IS DELIVERED
Since the main object of their Paris trip was to pick up the “Tell Me Yes” engagement ring Dodi had ordered in Monte Carlo a week earlier, Dodi decided to check on Repossi Jewellery, which was right within the Ritz prencincts, known as the Place Vendome. It could have taken less than a minute for Dodi to get to the store on foot but he decided to use a car to outsmart the paparazzi invasion. He was driven there by Trevor Rees-Jones, with Alexander Kez Wingfield and Claude Roulet following on foot, though he entered the shop alone.
The Repossi store had closed for the holiday season but Alberto Repossi, accompanied by his wife and brother-in-law, had decided to travel all the way from his home in Monaco and momentarily open it for the sake of the potentially highly lucrative Dodi transaction. Alberto, however, disappointed Dodi as the ring he had chosen was not the one he produced. The one he showed Dodi was pricier and perhaps more exquisite but Dodi was adamant that he wanted the exact one he had ordered as that was what Diana herself had picked. It was a ploy on the part of Repossi to make a real killing on the sale, his excuse to that effect being that Diana deserved a ring tha was well worthy of her social pedigree. With Dodi having expressed disaffection, Repossi rendered his apologies and assured Dodi he would make the right ring available shortly, whereupon Dodi repaired back to the hotel to await its delivery. But Dodi did insist nonetheless that the pricier ring be delivered too in case it appealed to Diana anyway.
Repossi delivered the two rings an hour later. They were collected by Roulet. On inspecting them, Dodi chose the very one he had seen in Monte Carlo, apparently at the insistence of Diana. There is a possibility that Diana, who was very much aware of her public image and was not comfortable with ostentatious displays of wealth, may have deliberately shown an interest in a less expensive engagement ring. It may have been a purely romantic as opposed to a prestigious choice for her.
The value of the ring, which was found on a wardrobe shelf in Dodi’s apartment after the crash, has been estimated to be between $20,000 and $250,000 as Repossi has always refused to be drawn into revealing how much Dodi paid for it. The sum, which enjoyed a 25 percent discount, was in truth paid for not by Dodi himself but by his father as was the usual practice.
Dodi was also shown Repossi’s sketches for a bracelet, a watch, and earrings which he proposed to create if Diana approved of them.
DIANA AND DODI GUSH OVER IMMINENT NUPTIALS
At about 7 pm, Dodi and Diana left the Ritz and headed for Dodi’s apartment at a place known as the Arc de Trompe. They went there to properly tog themselves out for the scheduled evening dinner. They spent two hours at the luxurious apartment. As usual, the ubiquitous paparazzi were patiently waiting for them there.
As they lingered in the apartment, Dodi beckoned over to his butler Rene Delorm and showed him the engagement ring. “Dodi came into my kitchen,” Delorm relates. “He looked into the hallway to check that Diana couldn’t hear and reached into his pocket and pulled out the box … He said, ‘Rene, I’m going to propose to the princess tonight. Make sure that we have champagne on ice when we come back from dinner’.” Rene described the ring as “a spectacular diamond encrusted ring, a massive emerald surrounded by a cluster of diamonds, set on a yellow and white gold band sitting in a small light-grey velvet box”.
Just before 9 pm, Dodi called the brother of his step-father, Hassan Yassen, who also was staying at the Ritz that night, and told him that he hoped to get married to Diana by the end of the year.
Later that same evening, both Dodi and Diana would talk to Mohamed Al Fayed, Dodi’s dad, and make known to him their pre-nuptial intentions. “They called me and said we’re coming back (to London) on Sunday (August 31) and on Monday (September 1) they are
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RAMADAN – The Blessed Month of Fasting
Ramadan is the fasting month for Muslims, where over one billion Muslims throughout the world fast from dawn to sunset, and pray additional prayers at night. It is a time for inner reflection, devotion to Allah, and self-control. It is the ninth month in the Islamic calendar. As you read this Muslims the world over have already begun fasting as the month of Ramadan has commenced (depending on the sighting of the new moon).
‘The month of Ramadan is that in which the Qur’an was revealed as guidance for people, in it are clear signs of guidance and Criterion, therefore whoever of you who witnesses this month, it is obligatory on him to fast it. But whoever is ill or traveling let him fast the same number of other days, God desires ease for you and not hardship, and He desires that you complete the ordained period and glorify God for His guidance to you, that you may be grateful”. Holy Qur’an (2 : 185)
Fasting during Ramadan is one of the five pillars upon which the structure of Islam is built. The other four are: the declaration of one’s belief in Allah’s oneness and in the message of Muhammad (PBUH); regular attendance to prayer; payment of zakaat (obligatory charity); and the pilgrimage to Mecca.
As explained in an earlier article, fasting includes total abstinence from eating, drinking, smoking, refraining from obscenity, avoiding getting into arguments and including abstaining from marital relations, from sunrise to sunset. While fasting may appear to some as difficult Muslims see it as an opportunity to get closer to their Lord, a chance to develop spiritually and at the same time the act of fasting builds character, discipline and self-restraint.
Just as our cars require servicing at regular intervals, so do Muslims consider Ramadan as a month in which the body and spirit undergoes as it were a ‘full service’. This ‘service’ includes heightened spiritual awareness both the mental and physical aspects and also the body undergoing a process of detoxification and some of the organs get to ‘rest’ through fasting.
Because of the intensive devotional activity fasting, Ramadan has a particularly high importance, derived from its very personal nature as an act of worship but there is nothing to stop anyone from privately violating Allah’s commandment of fasting if one chooses to do so by claiming to be fasting yet eating on the sly. This means that although fasting is obligatory, its observance is purely voluntary. If a person claims to be a Muslim, he is expected to fast in Ramadan.
The reward Allah gives for proper fasting is very generous. Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) quotes Allah as saying: “All actions done by a human being are his own except fasting, which belongs to Me and I will reward it accordingly.” We are also told by the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) that the reward for proper fasting is admittance into heaven.
Fasting earns great reward when it is done in a ‘proper’ manner. This is because every Muslim is required to make his worship perfect. For example perfection of fasting can be achieved through restraint of one’s feelings and emotions. Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said that when fasting, a person should not allow himself to be drawn into a quarrel or a slanging match. He teaches us: “On a day of fasting, let no one of you indulge in any obscenity, or enter into a slanging match. Should someone abuse or fight him, let him respond by saying: ‘I am fasting!’”
This high standard of self-restraint fits in well with fasting, which is considered as an act of self-discipline. Islam requires us to couple patience with voluntary abstention from indulgence in our physical desires. The purpose of fasting helps man to attain a high degree of sublimity, discipline and self-restraint. In other words, this standard CAN BE achieved by every Muslim who knows the purpose of fasting and strives to fulfill it.
Fasting has another special aspect. It makes all people share in the feelings of hunger and thirst. In normal circumstances, people with decent income may go from one year’s end to another without experiencing the pangs of hunger which a poor person may feel every day of his life. Such an experience helps to draw the rich one’s conscience nearer to needs of the poor. A Muslim is encouraged to be more charitable and learns to give generously for a good cause.
Fasting also has a universal or communal aspect to it. As Muslims throughout the world share in this blessed act of worship, their sense of unity is enhanced by the fact that every Muslim individual joins willingly in the fulfillment of this divine commandment. This is a unity of action and purpose, since they all fast in order to be better human beings. As a person restrains himself from the things he desires most, in the hope that he will earn Allah’s pleasure, self-discipline and sacrifice become part of his nature.
The month of Ramadan can aptly be described as a “season of worship.” Fasting is the main aspect of worship in this month, because people are more attentive to their prayers, read the Qur’an more frequently and also strive to improve on their inner and outer character. Thus, their devotion is more complete and they feel much happier in Ramadan because they feel themselves to be closer to their Creator.