Our Galactical Mother
Benson C Saili
THIS EARTH, MY BROTHER
The Orion Queen as the first to go by the titles Yahweh, Allah!
Just to recap, General Atiku, the Kheb race, also known as the Surbah, were the first sentient beings to evolve in the Peshmeten, the Milky Way Galaxy’s 9th Cosmic Passage Way, on a planet generically called the Green World.
The Green World pertained to the planetary system of the Suriya star, which was/is part and parcel of the Shagari constellation, today commonly known as the Orion star system. Now, the ancients, General, did not refer to the Green World by that name: they called it the SSS world. The Shagari Empire itself, along with its conquered worlds in other star systems, was also known as the SSS Empire. Why was this so, General?
Well, General, as we have already explained, the Kheb race evolved from a serpentine creature (which had characteristics of a bee-like insect though, which is significant as we shall soon demonstrate). We all know that the defining sound of a snake is a hiss. This characteristic lingered with the Kheb race. In their speech, they had a long-drawn-out “sss-sss” sound, very much similar to what we call a lisp in our world but a much more marked and sustained one.
Let’s say, for argument’s sake, a Kheb being wanted to pronounce the word “stone”. This would come out as “sss-tone”. If the “s” was at the end of a word, such as in “horse”, for example, the hiss sound would even be longer: the word would be pronounced “hor-ssss”. There was a further twist to the way female Khebs in particular made their pronunciations, General.
When they were cross, emoting, or in combative mode, they made a loud “ttt” sound at the end of the “sss” sound (is that how the expletive “shit” [I beg your pardon] originated?). As such, on the conquered worlds, female Khebs were generally called the SSS.TT and males were referred to simply as the SSS. The Green World thus became known as the SSS World. In some worlds, female Khebs were simply referred to as the TT, with the SSS omitted.
On other worlds, however, the Kheb race was collectively known as the SSA.TT.AN, which simply meant the “Serpent Race of Heaven,” Heaven being the Orion star system. The ancient Egyptian names of Set (an Anunnaki “god”) and Sut (an Anunnaki “goddess”) all derive from SST.TT, whilst the now reprehensible name Satan (Set-An) derive from SSA.TT.AN. You will now come to acknowledge, General, that the name “Satan” (“Shaitan” in Arabic) had no sinister connotations whatsoever in its original context. In fact, in Sumerian times, there was a stage when the term Satan meant “Truth Lord” (see The Earth Chronicles series).
Be that as it may, General, it was only in other, non-Reptoid worlds that the Kheb race was referred to as the SSS. On their own world, they in fact never even called themselves the Kheb race anymore. Nor did they call themselves the Snake race (just as we don’t call ourselves the “Ape race”). They called themselves the Nehk race. How did this name arise, General?
THE ROYAL AGHAR OF THE SEVEN EKE-ENES
Every society in our world, General, has something of the Orwellian paradigm about it, where all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others. It was the same on the SSS World. First, there were wars of domination between nations. In time, one particular ethnic group, which outnumbered all others, rose to prominence. This ethnic group called itself the Nehk-Khebs. It was this ethnic group that produced the Queen of the SSS World, who eventually became the Queen of the Orion Empire as a whole. And since it was the dominant group, the entire population of the SSS world adopted its name: they all became known as the Nehks.
The term Nehk meant “the Fearsome Black Ones”. It is actually the stem of the English word “Negro” or “Nigger”, General. However, the term black in this context did not refer to skin colour: it meant “mean-spirited”. The Nehks as a race were feared warriors. They were “bad news” on the battlefield, both on their own planet and in inter-planetary wars. That’s how they became known as the Fearsome Black Ones.
Initially, the SSS World like Earth had several disparate kingdoms. Most of these were ruled by women: only a few were ruled by men. This was because the SSS World was dominated by females by far. Not only did women fight in wars but they were in fact more formidable warriors than men. However, the women were not the main foot soldiers: they were always an elite unit in the overall army. They were only called upon when the stakes of war were very high. Why did women have such sway in the SSS World, General?
We have already underscored the fact that in the earlier stages of their evolution, the Nehks were bee-like insects, or Kheb insects. We know how a bee colony operates, General: all life revolves around the Queen bee. The male bees, the drones, serve two functions only. The first is to mate with their Queen, that’s how privileged they are! The second is to protect the Queen from harm by enemies and invaders. In other words, the drones are the soldiers.
On the other hand, the female bees perform all the day-to-day chores in the colony. That’s why they are called worker bees. When the Kheb insects evolved into Kheb humanoids (Serpentine Reptoids), these roles were carried along. In general, the females did domestic work and political and administrative work. The males were almost exclusively concentrated in the army. Only very few women were trained in military work and these comprised the planet’s Special Forces.
For ages, General, a series of global wars raged in the SSS World till sanity finally prevailed and it was decided that all the worlds amalgamate federally but under one overall sovereign so as to forge an enduring peace (the same direction we’re headed here on Earth?). The SSS World had seven major regions (to correspond with the seven major stars of the Orion constellation). Each region chose a queen, not a king, as females were the pre-eminent sex on the planet; so altogether, there were seven queens.
Then the seven queens chose one overall Queen of Queens. The resulting setup gave the SSS World its official name. It was called the Royal Aghar of the Seven Eke-Enes, meaning the Royal Realm of the Seven Queens. The term Eke-Enes, General, is what gives us the English words “King” and “Queen”, the feminine prefix “gyne”, and the biblical name “Cain”.
The overall Queen of the SSS World would in time become the overall Queen of the Shagari Empire (Orion star system and other vassal star systems elsewhere in the Milky Way Galaxy) as a whole. But it took eons of wars of conquests for her to attain this status, General.
THE PESHMETEN’S FIRST SUPER-POWER
The first super-power in the Peshmeten (meaning “9th Passageway”), a section of the Milky Way Galaxy that contained the busiest trade route, was Orion, General. As set down above, Orion was headed by a Queen, who was worshipped as a Goddess and Creatrix of the cosmos in the broader empire, and run by female administrators.
Orion females reproduced both sexually (with the involvement of male gametes) and asexually (without the involvement of male gametes) in that the SSS people, as the beings of Orion were called, evolved from a Kheb – a dragonfly-bee insect. As you very well know General, bees produce both sexually and asexually. The SSS’s dualistic reproductive mechanism was such that any child that arose from heterosexual reproduction was invariably a female and any child that arose from asexual reproduction was invariably a male.
Enki, the Anunnaki who genetically engineered Adam and Eve into existence from both Anunnaki and Ape-Man genes, was born asexually to the Queen of Orion as her eldest male child – the reason he used to boast that “I am the firstborn of the gods”. Enki, therefore, had no father General.
THE COSMOS’ MOTHER SUPERIOR
In the SSS World, General, motherhood was denominated by the term Ma. Every mother was a Ma. Since the Queen was a mother, she too was a Ma. She was actually called “The Ma.” But she was not only a mother: she was the mother of the global empire. She was therefore addressed as Her Majesty Queen Ma-Ma. On the SSS World, doubling a name or title indicated superiority. The Queen, General, was the Big Mama, the Cosmic Mummy!
The Queen was the First Citizen of the Orion Empire. As such, she was called The Ma-Ur, meaning “First Lady”. Abbreviated, this became The Great Mar. But because of the tendency on the SSS World to double titles of eminent personages, the Queen was called Her Majesty Queen Mar-Mar.
Now, in the Orion Empire, that is, the SSS World plus other planets and star systems it had colonised in the 9th Sector of the Milky Way Galaxy – arguably the most powerful realm in the galaxy – the Orion Queen was recognised as the Queen of the Galactic Waters. The other name for Galactic Waters is The Ocean of the Khaa. Both these terms simply mean “cosmic space”. Since the Orion Queen was the Queen of the galactic space, the galactic space also went by the name The Great Mar.
This is the true origin of the Latin word Mar, which means “ocean” and from which we get such ocean-related terms as “marine” and “maritime” General. In a section above, we called attention to the fact that the females of the Kheb race (as the people of the SSS World called themselves) were on other worlds known simply as TT because of an aspect of their speech patterns. Their Queen, being foremost of women in the empire, was therefore referred to as Queen Ma-tt, or Queen Ma-tt-ur.
Ma-tt-ur is the true origin of our English word “mother”, General. As we all know, “mother” does not only refer to the most important woman in a nuclear family unit; it also refers to a matriarch such as “Mother Superior” in the Catholic orders for instance. All female-centred terms such as maternal, matriarch, matron, maternity, matricide, etc, stem from Ma-tt or Ma-tt-ur.
Now, throughout the Peshmeten, General, there was a term that was particularly revered. This was An, or simply N. An meant “The Most High”. The first being to go by this title was the Orion Queen, who in the Peshmeten was received not only as an empress but as a goddess (on her own planet though, she was simply received as a queen and not as a goddess, meaning she was not worshipped). When the Bible says Jesus was the “Son of the Most High” (LUKE 1:32), General, the fundamental meaning is that he was derivatively the son of the Orion Queen/Goddess, who was symbolised by his mother Mary.
THE FIRST YAHWEH, THE FIRST ALLAH
Yet another of the principal titles of the Queen of Orion, General, was Aya, only second to Ma as a frame of reference. On the SSS World, she was addressed as Queen Aya, meaning “The Sovereign One”, “The First Lady”, or simply “The One”. But Aya was an abbreviation, General. The full title was Ay-Ay. Pronouncing a name repetitively on the SSS World as we have already indicated denoted superior status. It is Ay-Ay from which the Hebrew name Ahayah (Yahweh, meaning “Most High God”) is descended. The first Yahweh, General, was the Queen of Orion.
Ay-Ay was at times pronounced as Al-Al because in ancient languages, Y and L were interchangeable. This linguistic legacy is still retained in some languages of our day. For example, the Spanish word for yellow, “amarillo”, is pronounced “amariyo”. Al-Al in our modern-day can also be pronounced as … Allah. Again the first Allah, General, was the Queen of Orion.
The Sumerian records relate that the most renowned Anunnaki was Enki, being the great scientist who genetically engineered mankind from the genes of Ape-Man and those of the Anunnaki 300,000 years ago (see The Earth Chronicles series). Enki’s other name was Ea, the masculine form of Aya. In Sumerian times, Ea meant “He Whose House is Water”.
In other words, Enki was the cosmic sovereign since his name connoted dominion over the Ocean of the Khaa, the Galactic Ocean we call space. But Enki was Ea derivatively because he wasn’t in truth the cosmic sovereign: it was his mother, the Orion Queen, who was. The title Ea therefore was a honorary one.
The Orion Queen’s other title was Eke (also rendered “Ege” or “Igi”, meaning “Creatrix”), abbreviated as Ki. In the subsidiary worlds such as ours, however, she was primarily addressed as Ke-Ea, meaning “Divine Creatrix”, also rendered as Ga-Ea or Ga-Ia, the famous “mythological” goddess of Earth during a certain era. Gaea, General, is one of the ancient names for planet Earth, in honour of the Orion Queen.
THE FIRST DIVINE WOMB
Now, the Orion Queen, General, had a lifespan that was basically everlasting and so were her offspring. This was the principal reason she was received as a Goddess by her cosmic subjects. Initially, this seamless longevity was enabled by the routine ingestion of an extract from her own menstruum. You will be aware by now, General, that menstruum is the most medicinal of the body’s secretions, a closely-guarded Illuminati secret: the things it can do when harnessed as a therapeutic substance are eye-poppingly wondrous.
Menstruum is such a potent therapeutic substance because, first, it carries the most substantial amounts of melatonin. Melatonin is a hormonal secretion that is manufactured by the pineal gland (located in the head) using a chemical messenger known as serotonin. Second, melatonin enhances and boosts the body’s immune system. Third, it has positive mental and physical anti-aging properties. Says Laurence Gardner: “Menstruum contains the most valuable endocrinal secretions, especially those of the pineal and pituitary glands.
The brain’s pineal gland in particular was directly associated with the ‘Tree of Life’, for this tiny gland was said to secrete the very essence of active longevity, called Soma, or, as the Greeks called it, Ambrosia.” The extract was known as S-MA (note the near-rhyming with “Soma”), meaning “That Which Makes the Ma Go”, that is, live indefinitely. S-MA not only extended the Queen’s lifespan by hundreds of thousands of years in Earth terms but it also increased her energy levels.
Furthermore, it made her maintain her youth both externally and at the cellular level for a much longer time and that, coupled with the fact that the fluid that produced S-MA came from the royal womb, had the result that S-MA was at times referred to as the “Fountain of Youth”, with the divine womb itself referred to as the “Cup of Eternal Energy”. Thus the symbology of the cup as the Holy Grail, General, stems, fundamentally, from the uterus/cup of the Orion Queen as the provider of the life-extending menstruum/S-MA.
You get the photo General?
NEXT WEEK: WHY WE ARE “BANTUS”
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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.