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Friday, 19 April 2024

The Bread of Life

Columns

Benson C Saili
THIS EARTH, MY BROTHER

    
How Ormus sustained  the Anunnaki and Nation of Israel

The Sinai Peninsula did not have a speck of gold in its crust. So where did the gold that was used to manufacture the Ormus the Petrie party happened upon  in Hathor’s Temple emanate?

It was Egypt. You will be aware by now that the Sinai Peninsula was part of Egypt effective from circa 2600 BC to 106 AD (latterly it has reverted to Egypt anyway, after Israel seized it during the 6-Day  War of June 1967 and wholly returned it in 1982).  Ancient Egypt was very rich in gold and particularly so because it incorporated Nubia, today’s Sudan, which had even larger reserves of the yellow metal. It explains why the Egyptian word for gold is nub, a truncation of  Nubia.

It is estimated that almost 6.7 million ounces of gold, equivalent to just under $9 billion at today’s rates, has been mined from Egypt’s Eastern Desert alone.   About 1300 gold mines are said to have been excavated over the past 4600 years or so in the country and more than 100 gold quarries have been identified.  When archaeologists investigated the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamen, who died by means foul at only age 21, they found 110 tons worth of gold, equivalent to $7 billion in today’s money. Of course much of that gold must have come from foreign sources given that the average yearly gold production in pharaonic times is estimated at 1 ton per annum.

Now, gold in those days was not the ultimate store of value it is today.  There was no such thing as a gold treasury as there was no money until the third century BC and trade was by barter.  The working population received their pay in food and gifts. So to what use was all the gold put to?

Well, with Ormus factoring into the equation, the answer is obvious. Ormus-making was why some of the Egyptian gold ended up at Serabit El Khadim. Indeed, King Solomon did not become history’s richest King (the more authoritative historians  say it is Mansa Musa  of Mali Empire fame  who merits this accolade) thanks to the surfeit of gold he  possessed but thanks to what he made out of gold – Ormus.  

But was the ordinary man on the streets aware of Ormus and that it was made out of gold? Ancient Egyptians referred to gold as “the flesh of the gods”, that is, the Anunnaki. This was because like gold, the Anunnaki did shine (by virtue of talking Ormus) and like gold they never tarnished or deteriorated (they neither  aged nor fell ill), again thanks to ingesting Ormus. Maybe Ormus was only a secret because ordinary mankind didn’t know how it was made. But they knew of its existence alright, hence its other public domains names such as the Elixir of Life or the Fountain of Youth.

THE ANUNNAKI PROSPECTED FOR ORMUS

The Anunnaki, the Old Testament gods, came to Earth, from their planet Nibiru, about 450,000 years ago to prospect for gold.  According to Sumerian records, the first place they searched for this gold was in the Persian Gulf, in the sea. Chroniclers of the Anunnaki saga, including the highly regarded Zechariah Sitchin, have taken it for granted that the gold the Anunnaki were prospecting for in the sea was regular gold, the familiar yellow metal. That, regrettably, is misconceived.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) calculates that there is today about 20 million tons of gold dissolved in all sea water on the planet. But to extract just one ounce of gold, one will need about 30 million pounds of sea water. “We are talking such miniscule quantities that it is hard to even wrap your head around it,” says the NOAA.

Maybe the quantity of gold in the oceans at the time of the Anunnaki was higher then if we take account of the gold-rich asteroids that hurtle into Earth’s seas from time to time, but the extraction ratio must have been the same. Clearly, if it was metallic gold the Anunnaki were looking for, the sea was the wrong place to look. But they did scour the sea for gold all right. THIS GOLD, HOWEVER, WAS NOT METALLIC GOLD: IT WAS ORMUS – MONOATOMIC GOLD.

The first thing the Anunnaki were concerned about when they touched down on Earth was their wellbeing healthwise on a foreign planet. The other was their lifespan on a planet with an infinitesimally shorter circumsolar (around the sun) cycle compared with Nibiru. If they had to guarantee sound health through and through and more or less maintain their life expectancy, they needed Ormus sooner than later. Ormus, as indicated above, abounds far much more in the sea than on firm land.

It was after they had extracted sufficient quantities of Ormus from the sea (and the surrounding rivers such as the Havillah and the Pishon) that the Anunnaki now decided to set up mining facilities in Africa and embark on the extraction of metallic gold. This is the sequence they followed as Sumerian records crystal-clearly set out for us.

The gold the Anunnaki came to obtain from Earth, Sumerian records inform us, was lofted into the upper reaches of their planet’s atmosphere with a view to sealing the ozone hole. But that was simply one of the purposes for which it was used. A proportion of any element that is suspended in the stratosphere is certain to fall back on the surface of the planet as a component of rain. That was the case with Nibiru.

The planet’s “golden rain” bathed the herbs, plants, grass, fruits, and crops and the dissolved monoatomic gold was therefore absorbed and chemically retained. When the Anunnaki fed on these fruits and crops and on the meaty animals that fed on the planet’s flora, or when they (the Anunnaki) partook of naturally grown herbs or herbal products, they automatically absorbed the monoatomic gold they contained, Ormus.  That way, their lives were practically infinitely prolonged by the Ormus, which has anti-aging properties and is innately medicinal across the whole spectrum of ailments.

EDIN IDEAL LOCATION FOR ORMUS INGREDIENTS

In The Lost Book of Enki, the story-teller, Enki, commands his master scribe Endubasar (who documented Enki’s dictation) to “eat the bread and drink the water and be sustained for forty days and forty nights” (an echo of the Jesus stint in the wilderness) prior to the commencement of his script-writing labours. What kind of bread can keep a man going without conventional food for such a length of time? Of course it’s none other than Ormus.

That Ormus was central to Anunnaki wellbeing is very cleverly encoded right in the opening passages of Genesis. Talking about the Edin (Eden in the Bible), the Anunnaki’s first settlement on Earth in southern Iraq, GENESIS 2:12 reads: “And the gold of that land is good: there is also bdellium and the onyx stone.” There’s more than meets the eye to this statement folks: IT SPECIFIES THE THREE MATERIALS FUNDAMENTAL TO THE PREPARATION OF ORMUS.

BDELIUM is gum resin. The Egyptian word for gum resin is KMY.T, which originally meant “black earth”. Now, ancient alchemists used code language to denote the ingredients required to make Ormus as the process was classified by the alchemical adepts. One of the three primary ingredients was antimony ore (stibnite), which is black. Bdelium was a code word for black antimony.

ONYX is a semi-precious stone that can assume a dark-red colour. As such, it signifies a red stone. Needless to say, Onyx was a code word for cinnabar, the dark red rock from which mercury is extracted. To make Ormus, gold was the primary ingredient. Mercury and antimony were the auxiliary elements. The fact that these three metals are mentioned together in the inceptual lines of Genesis is no mere chance.

IT IS ALSO NOTEWORTHY THAT ALL THE THREE METALS WERE OBTAINABLE AROUND THE EDIN. The Zagros Mountain range (which straddles Iran, Iraqi, and southeastern Turkey) and the river Pishon/Uizon (GENESIS 2:11) were prominent sources of gold in antiquity. (Today the river Uizon flows past a village in Turkey called Zarshuyan, which means ‘gold washing’, which is more than a tell-tale.) In ancient times, northwestern Iran provided a rich source of antimony and eastern Turkey abounded with cinnabar ores. It goes without saying that when the Anunnaki chose Iraq as their first settlement on Earth, they took due account of its strategic location – its proximity to sources of the principal ingredients for Ormus.

It is also significant that the description of the location of the Garden of Eden (GENESIS 2:10-14) follows immediately after the first mention of the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge (GENESIS 2:9). Again this is not a coincidence. In the purview of multiple encoded meanings of biblical accounts, the Tree of Life was amongst other things symbolic of Ormus, the elixir of the Anunnaki “gods”.

The “Tree of Knowledge” was symbolic, amongst other things, of the theoretical and practical knowledge required to actually produce Ormus. The expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden lest they partake of the Tree of Life and “live forever” may therefore be emblematic of their being forbidden access to Ormus.

The Anunnaki God of Knowledge as we have already established was Enki. ENKI WAS ALSO THE ANUNNAKI’S MASTER ALCHEMIST. It was Enki who taught Adapa, his son with an Earthling woman, and Cain the art of alchemy. From that time, Adapa and his descendents became alchemical priests. For example, Tubal-Cain, who was several generations removed from Cain, is described in the Bible as a metallurgist specialising in copper and iron. It is small wonder Enki was so abhorred by Enlil as he gave away the secrets of the gods to mankind. He was the Prometheus who stole fire (privileged knowledge) from Mount Olympus (the abode of Jehovah-Enlil) and gave it to the Adamite race, his creation.

MANNA WAS ORMUS FOR NATION OF ISRAEL!

If you recall what we said last time around, Ormus is a recurrent feature in the Bible, often directly but on occasion veiled in a language that may appear as code to us but which secret society initiates of the day understood rather easily. In the Bible, Ormus is primarily referred to as Manna. It is also called bread, the bread of life, shewbread, the bread of the presence, white stone, gold glass, or simply proper food.

The commonest reference to Ormus, Manna, was meant to confuse the uninitiated. For Manna simply means, “what is it?” This statement embodied elements both of mystery (what the hell is this thing?) and wonder, the latter because of the wondrous effects it had on those who consumed it. It had to remain a mystery to those who were not ordained into the mystery schools of the day.

In the Bible, Manna is first encountered in the time of Moses, during the Jewish exodus from Egypt to “The Promised Land” (“The Usurped Land” fits the bill better). When the Nation of Israel was confined to the wilderness for “40 years”, they were fed on Manna. Explaining what this mysterious substance was to his people, Moses described it as “bread” God, that is, Ishkur-Adad, the Jehovah of the Exodus,  had provisioned his people.

It was white in colour, was shaped into wafers (like the sacrament bread of the Catholics today) and tasted like honey (because honey was a binding ingredient), but Moses described it as bread anyway. Now, the authors of the Pentateuch (first five books of the Old Testament) are noted for their penchant for meticulous detail. They could describe a procedure, an apparatus, paraphernalia, a ritual, a special attire, or an object encyclopaedically. Yet they furnish no details as to what a seemingly vital source of sustenance such as Manna exactly was. This of course is deliberate. They didn’t want to give the game away. But the term “bread’ is a sufficient enough cue.

THIS BREAD, THIS MANNA, WAS ORMUS. It was necessary for Adad to feed his people with Ormus because first, he wanted to ensure that they were in sound health both at the spiritual and physical level. Second, he wanted to see to it that in the event that they were engaged in wars of conquest, they should be fighting fit. Ormus was an omnipotent enough food to guarantee both these capacities. HOWEVER, THE ORMUS THE ISRAELITES WERE GIVEN WAS A DUMBED-DOWN VERSION.

Firstly, it was not made from gold but from copper, a mineral in which the Sinai Peninsula was very rich (Recall that Ormus can be made not only from gold but also from silver, the platinum metals, copper, nickel, cobalt, and mercury. These metals are ipso facto known as the ORME Elements, ORME being an acronym for Orbitally Rearranged Monoatomic Elements, or Ormus in short). Secondly, the white powder of copper, the copper Ormus, was mixed with a disproportionately large quantity of unleavened (yeastless) flour.

It was reasonably potent enough though to nourish both their bodies and their souls but not to effect a wholesale transformation intellectually and genetically. For from what we glean from happenings in the wilderness, the Israelites still aged and died and were not that intellectually focused. They did a lot of dumb things. The Enlilite Anunnaki would never give Earthlings high-grade Ormus with medicinal and anti-aging properties, with properties that perfected the intellect.
     
SHEWBREAD – THE PRIESTLY ORMUS

In antiquity, gold was known as the metal of the gods – the Anunnaki. It is therefore not surprising that gold – both the metallic type and the monoatomic variety – had a connotation and symbolism in the Bible that had divine undertones. A prominent personage in the Pentateuch is one Bezaleel. Bezaleel was the most skilled goldsmith of the day; as such, he was the chief artisan of the Tabernacle (a portable Temple the Israelites used during their years of wandering in the wilderness under Moses) and was tasked to build the iconic Ark of the Covenant. EXODUS 39:32-41 sets out comprehensively the contents, components, and constituents of the Tabernacle. Of these, the most enigmatic was an item known as the bread of the presence. In other sections, it is referred to as shewbread or, intriguingly, meat. What was shewbread?

Shewbread consisted of twelve, disc-shaped cakes, each representing a tribe of Israel, that were placed on a golden table in the Tabernacle in the Holy Place, which was in front of the Holy of Holies, the most sacred precinct of the Tabernacle. It was called shewbread (“shew” is the archaic form of “show”) because it was meant to be symbolically shown off to the imaginary presence of God (hence, its other name, the bread of the presence) in an imaginary picture of God’s willingness to fellowship with his people.

THE FACT THAT IT WAS NOT ORDINARY BREAD IS HINTED BY THE PERSON WHO PREPARED IT. IT WAS BEZALEEL, A MASTER CRAFTSMAN OF COPPER, SILVER, AND GOLD. Certainly, if it were made from ordinary flour, it would not have required preparation by a master metallurgist. In preparing the shewbread, Bezaleel worked with the Kohathite priests only, one of the three main divisions of the Levite priests, and no other.

This particularised feature about its preparation is suggestive of the necessity to jealously protect and classify knowledge of its ingredients. Indeed, the Jewish Encyclopaedia notes that, “It would seem that the preparing of these cakes involved certain information which was kept as a secret by this priestly set”.

The shewbread of the Tabernacle was made from Ormus of gold mixed with unleavened flour, also known as “fine flour” or “sweet flour”, the latter because it was laced with a bit of honey to make it palatable to the taste. It had to be made from gold and not any other monoatomic element because gold was the elemental symbol of God. The table itself was made out of gold and bore only gold utensils. Every piece of furniture in the room was made of gold.

The 12 shewbread cakes were replaced every seven days. Jewish rabbinical literature says despite a “table life” of seven days, the cakes remained as hot as if they were freshly baked, something very uncharacteristic of ordinary bread. The replaced cakes were to be consumed by the serving priests right in the Holy Place. However, some priests chose to share their portion of the cake with members of their families. But the family members would not enter the Holy Place to partake of it: they would have to do so in the outer court.

Slaves belonging to the priests were also entitled to partake of the shewbread cakes. Clearly, it was privileged food for privileged people who were pivotal to the Anunnaki-instituted idolatry ritual we now call religion. The Jewish rabbinical literature says when the shewbread was distributed to priests, each received the measure of a size of a bean seed (there were up to 22,000 priests, then add to that their families) but this was enough to meet both their intellectual and bodily needs as well as their illumination metaphysically! ORDINARY BREAD WOULD NOT HAVE ACCOMPLISHED THIS: ONLY ORMUS COULD.

NEXT WEEK: MORE ON THE ORMUS MAGIC

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GONE FISHING

28th March 2023

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”

28th March 2023

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

28th March 2023

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.

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