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The Desolation Sacrilege

 A “pagan” King violates the Jewish Temple by setting up an idol in the Holy of Holies

 

Why, General Atiku, has the Judean setting (present-day Israel/Palestine) being the focus of so much geopolitical fervour over the ages when it is so resource-poor and is not even that agriculturally fecund being a virtual desert? Why have all the superpowers of history locked horns over it since days immemorial?
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The Anunnaki fought over it not once but time and again, General. Alexander’s generals-cum-sovereigns contended for it over scores of years. The Romans were determined to put it under their imperial yoke come what may: when Roman general Flavius Titus razed Jerusalem to the ground in AD 70, commemorative coins embossed with the words “Judea Captiva” (Judea is Captured) were minted, underscoring a valued colonisation milestone. One could go on and on.

The answer, General, has to do with the theocratic centrality of Jerusalem. To the Anunnaki, the Old Testament gods who ruled Earth for nearly half a million years, Jerusalem is Earth’s capital. It is the city that will host King Anu, “Our Father Who Art In Heaven”, the Anunnaki Emperor, next time he visits the planet, which is likely not in yours and my life time General.

Anu last came to Earth circa 4000 BC. He was expected again in the 6th century BC, but although Nibiru, the Anunnaki’s Solar System outpost planet did show up, Anu did not pitch. Had he come down, he would have been received in Jerusalem as per the wishes of the Enlilite faction of the Anunnaki (that is, Jehovah-Enlil’s faction), though the Enkites (Enki’s faction), who were the ruling clan of the day (the astrological Age of Aries, which ran from 2220 BC to 60 BC) would rather – and contrived that – he was received in Babylon, their headquarters. This tactical deflection could explain why Anu didn’t turn up after all as he was more aligned with the Enlilites, his own flesh and blood, than the Enkites, who were his foster progeny.

Nibiru is seen by us Earthlings once every 3600 years, called a shar in Sumerian chronicles.  The world’s first formal calendar, called the Nippurian Calendar, was introduced by the Anunnaki in 3760 BC, the year that knucklehead religio-historians insist is the one in which Adam was created – talk about hogwash!  The first shar (3760-3600) henceforth was therefore to run its course in 160 BC.

Note, General, that the ancients did not count time in BC terms as we retrospectively do in our day: to them, what we call 3760 BC was year 0 and 160 BC was year 3600. Since this was a special year, it was to be primarily celebrated in the world’s de facto capital, Jerusalem. This, General, was the fundamental reason the Seleucids captured Judea in 200 BC – to be in control of this hallowed, all-important city by the first shar anniversary. The driving impulse was not so much geopolitical/economic as religio-messianic, a stark fact conventional historians have missed by a long shot.

Zechariah Sitchin sketches out for us a portrait of the preparations that went on in this regard in the Middle East: “A frenzy of rebuilding the ruined temples of Sumer and Akkad began, with emphasis on the Eanna — the ‘House of Anu’ — in Uruk (in today’s Iraq). The Landing Place in Lebanon, called by them Heliopolis — City of the Sun God (Utu-Shamash, Jehovah-Enlil’s grandson) — was rededicated by erecting a temple honouring Zeus (Nannar-Sin, Jehovah-Enlil’s second-born son) …

The change was most significant in Jerusalem, where suddenly foreign troops were stationed and the authority of the Temple priests was curtailed. Hellenistic (Greek-oriented) culture and customs were forcefully introduced; even names had to be changed, starting with the High Priest, who was obliged to change his name from Joshua to Jason. Civil laws restricted Jewish citizenship in Jerusalem; taxes were raised to finance the teaching of athletics and wrestling instead of the Torah; and in the countryside, shrines to Greek deities (Anunnaki gods under Greek names) were being erected by the authorities and soldiers were sent to enforce worship in them.”

SELEUCID RULE OF TERROR

As indicated last week, General, the Seleucid King Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who took Jerusalem in 200 BC, was far from a benevolent or tolerant occupying monarch. The raft of decrees he issued and the toe-the-line measures he took were extreme to a point of being sacrilegious, if not outright blasphemous in the eyes of the implacably religious Jews. The Temple was ransacked and children and women were “led captive”.

Sabbaths, feasts, ritual sacrifices, and the rite of circumcision were banned and outlawed. People who circumcised their children invited capital punishment – they and members of their broader family. Even the possession of Jewish religious texts, such as the Torah, for instance, was on pain of death.  Any copy of such texts the ranks of the Seleucid soldiers happened upon anywhere were not only torn to smithereens but burnt to a cinder.

Once, Epiphanes set his general Apollonius loose on the Jews as they defiantly observed the Sabbath. The general, with a 22,000-strong military contingent under him, had huge numbers of Jewish men slaughtered and women and children taken into slave labour, beside plundering the Temple.  Epiphanes was determined to demonstrate without the merest shred of doubt that he would not brook the littlest show of dissent or resistance from his subjects.

If there was one particularly two-faced tactic Epiphanes was good at, General, it was divide and rule. He was in the habit of setting off one leading light Jew against another and when it was expedient for him ditch that same person for yet another from whom he stood to benefit much more by way of acts of subservience.  More often than not, he would revert to the very man he callously elbowed out of the way, one glaring example of which involved one Menelaus and Jason.

At the time Epiphanes seized Jerusalem, the Jewish High Priest, General, was Onias III. Onias was stoutly opposed to the Hellenisation of Judah and the adulteration of its faith, which was intertwined with Jewish politics. He thus was a huge stumbling block to Epiphanes, who wanted Judah to be Greek-ish warts and all.

In the event, Onias’ younger brother Joshua decided to capitalise. He offered Epiphanes bribes of all sorts to eject Onias from the exalted pedestal of High Priest. Epiphanes had no regard for the position of High Priest, whereas in the eyes of Jewry, it was a God-given office. Thus responding in the affirmative to Joshua’s overtures, Epiphanes had Onias deposed and replaced by Joshua.

Joshua in turn not only changed his  name to the Greek Jason but he also declared the Jewish theocracy abolished and moved to turn Jerusalem into a Greek polis (administrative and religious centre) integral to the Syrian city of Antioch, which was the regional capital of the Seleucids.  Thus onward raged the polarity between the traditionalists with Hebrew/Aramaic names and Jewish Hellenists who accordingly adopted Greek names.

Epiphanes’ mercuriality in the manner he governed Judah has been dismissively described thus in one account: “This tyrant was a past master in manipulating Jewish leaders who were divided in their loyalties, winning them over to his cause by glowing promises of preferment and reward. As a matter of fact, Antiochus already had as partisans for his cause a considerable number of influential leaders in Jerusalem society and politics who were convinced of the expediency of a pro-Hellenic policy.”

At some stage, noting Epiphanes’ vulnerability to the wiles of the highest bidder, Menelaus, General, decided to enter the lists too. Epiphanes obliged him and Jason was toppled as High Priest and replaced with Menelaus in 172 BC, whereupon he gladly allowed the Temple to be pillaged by Epiphanes.  Meanwhile, Onias was not exactly a spent force and so primed himself for another shot at the priesthood. Menelaus responded by orchestrating his assassination. But although Menelaus was arrested after he was linked to the murder, he palm-greased his way out of trouble, with only his henchmen fatally pounced upon by Epiphanes.

Years later, a rumour ran round that Epiphanes was dead and in a bid to make hay whilst the sun shone, Jonas rallied and had Menelaus unseated but the triumph was no more than a nine days’ wonder. Epiphanes, who was alive and kicking, descended on Jerusalem with a vengeance and had more than 80,000 Jews who had reinforced Jason put to the sword. Later, accompanied by Menelaus, Epiphanes swarmed into the Temple and had it desecrated. Exactly how General?

OF DESOLATION AND ABOMINATION

In both the Old and New Testament, General, a phrase is used that has connotations of something so egregiously evil that it amounts to insulting or profaning God, or some such Jewish deity anyway. The term is desolation sacrilege, also rendered the abomination of desolation. Literally, desolation meant complete destruction and abomination referred to that which was behind this extirpation.

Over time, however, desolation came to assume a metaphorical meaning loaded with religious undertones. It denoted an act on the part of non-Jews that defiled the Temple and was anathema both to God and the Jewish nation itself, the ultimate sin against God himself and his chosen people.

The first desolation sacrilege was committed way back in the 6th century BC by Nabunaid, the last King of the Neo-Babylonian Empire who reigned from 555 to 539 BC under the auspices of Nannar-Sin, the Anunnaki “god” who would in future become the Allah of Islam. Nabunaid had an idolatrous image, which was flanked by two “guardians” in the form of a “Deluge demon” and a “Wild Bull”, placed in the Esagil, the god Marduk’s temple, all in the name of his god Sin.

Says a tablet known as Nabunaid and the Clergy of Babylon and which can be found in the British Museum: “He made an image of a god which nobody had seen before in the land. He placed it in the temple, raised it upon a pedestal. He called it by the name of Nannar. With lapis lazuli he adorned it, crowned it with a tiara in the shape of an eclipsed moon, made for its hand the gesture of a demon.”

The Babylonian clergy were not amused, General. They demanded that Nabunaid step down as King and since they had quite a sway on the national populace, Nabunaid simply had to play ball. But he struck up a compromise deal with them, whereby he would go into exile for at least ten years, leaving his son Belshazzar as regent.

Of the passages in the New Testament that make mention of desolation, one is MARK 13:14 and another is LUKE 21:20.   MARK 13:14 reads thus General: “Now, whenever you may be perceiving the abomination of desolation, standing where it must not (let the reader apprehend), then let those in Judea flee into the mountains,” an echo, if not exact replica, of MATTHEW 24:15. Mark here was referring to Gaius Caligula, Roman Emperor from 37-41 AD, who in his very fateful year had a certain Petronius dispatched to Judea to set up his (Caligula’s) statue in Jerusalem, which to the Jews obviously amounted to idolatry.

Caligula is “the man of lawlessness” Paul cryptically alludes to in 2 THESSALONIANS 2: 1-12.   The legendary Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus, relates the incident thus: “Now Gaius bore a grudge for being ignored only by the Jews in this respect [i.e., honouring him as divine]. So he sent his legate, Petronius, to Syria to take the rule over from Vitellius and ordered him to lead a large force into Judea. If they received him willingly, he was to place a statue of (Caligula) in the Temple of God. But if they treated him with arrogance, he still was to do this after mastering them in battle.”

Matthew and Mark make Jesus serve warning in advance as they were aware that in such a situation, war was certain to ensue, with the Jews made mince of by the mighty Romans, and as such, women and children in particular had to flee before hostilities broke out if they were to avoid the butchery.

Caligula’s wish was not carried out, however, for two reasons basically. First, Petronius shilly-shallied as the Jews were already primed to engage him in war, a providential hesitation Paul hints at in 2 THESSALONIANS 2:6.  Second, Caligula was assassinated shortly thereafter and was succeeded by Claudius, who was not that fixated on etching his image on the Jewish psyche in the manner Caligula desired.

LUKE 21:20 reads thus: “Now whenever you may be perceiving Jerusalem surrounded by encampments, then know that her desolation is near.”  Luke, who in all probability wrote after the fact, was referring to what transpired in 70 AD, when Roman general Flavius Titus in April of that year surrounded Jerusalem with four legions as the Passover celebrations got underway.

The siege raged for about four months, during which the Temple was destroyed once and for all (the abomination of desolation act) and Jerusalem was sacked. According to Josephus, 1.1 million civilians perished in the siege, with 97,000 Jews taken into slavery all over the Roman Empire. One account informs us that the Egyptian slave market was so deluged with Jewish captives (in other words, supply overwhelmingly outstripped demand) that, “a Jew was sold for as little as the price of a portion of horse feed”.

THE MONSTROSITY OF DECEMBER 16, 168 BC

It was the prophet Daniel, however, General, who brought the term abomination of desolation into every-day use.  Daniel himself borrowed it from LEVITICUS 26:31-33, in which the Jehovah of the Exodus, Ishkur-Adad, spells out the consequences for the Jewish nation in the event that they flouted his edicts and ordinances in these words: “I will turn your cities into a desert and make your grand sanctuary desolate; I shall not smell your fragrant odour. Myself will make the land so desolate that your enemies, the ones dwelling in it, will be appalled over it. And you I shall winnow among the nations, and I will unsheathe a sword after you so that your land will become a desolation and your cities become a desert.”

In Chapter 9 of the Book of DANIEL, General, the writer talks about “the prince who is to come”, who “shall make sacrifice and offering cease, and in their place shall be an abomination that desolates”.  In the context of the times about which the book was written, this referred to Antiochus IV Epiphanes. Those days, the Jews routinely sacrificed a lamb twice a day in the Temple, in the morning and the evening. This was in line with NUMBERS 28:3-4, which said, “As a regular burnt offering every day, two yearling lambs without blemish you shall offer, one lamb in the morning, the other lamb you shall offer at twilight.”

On December 16, 168 BC, things changed full circle, General, when Epiphanes by immediate decree put an end to Jewish religious offerings. Atop the already existing altar, he erected his own, which he dedicated to his god Zeus, dubbed “The Lord of Heaven”, a veritable reprise of the Nabunaid deed. He then proceeded to sacrifice a pig to this same god, an unclean animal to the Jews.

Meanwhile, he ordered that the Jews sacrifice a pig to his honour every time his own birthday came by.    Zeus of course, General, belonged to the same family and clan of gods the Jews worshipped. His Sumerian-Akkadian name as indicated above was Nannar-Sin, the future Allah of Islam, the second-born son of Enlil, the principal Jehovah of the Bible. However, neither the Jews nor the Seleucids themselves were aware of this subterfuge on the part of the Anunnaki, whose religio-political strategy was that of deceive, divide, and rule.

Next, Epiphanes made his way into the Holy of Holies, the Temple’s most sacred inner sanctum, and had the golden ritual objects taken away. He then appointed a Greek governor to administrate the city and decreed the construction of a permanent fortress garrison for his soldiers only a stone’s throw from the Temple.

To the Jews, Epiphanes had committed an unconscionable sin: it was the last straw as far as they were concerned.   

NEXT WEEK: HELL UP IN JUDAH

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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 ÂŁ18,000 (around P ÂŒ 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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