Untold Aspects of the Scholarly and Executive Conduct of Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei; Part Two: Service to the Underprivileged and Establishment

 In the first part of this article, a brief account was given of Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei's scholarly conduct and social activities. In this article, an attempt is made to present a portion of his efforts in serving the underprivileged.

Service to the underprivileged is not merely an individual attribute but a continuous, enduring family tradition in his life—both when, at the age of nine, in September 1978, he witnessed his father, the martyred Ayatollah Khamenei, striving to aid the earthquake victims of Tabas, and when, for years, alongside his mother, anonymously and unrecognized, he would visit the homes of the poor in the city and witness his mother's "hand-sewn" efforts to provide dowries for young girls. Girls who did not know that these data-x-items were sewn by the skilled hands and tailoring of the wife of the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, and that some of these very sewn pieces were also placed as part of the dowry for the daughters of the highest leader of the Islamic system.

Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei repeatedly witnessed his mother's distress over the living conditions of the underprivileged, to the extent that he once told his students: "Our mother, sometimes after returning from the homes of the poor, would be so distraught that she could no longer eat." His wife, the martyr Zahra Haddad Adel, also provided various services to the underprivileged in areas of Tehran such as the Harandi neighborhood and held sessions at the Imam Sajjad (a.s.) Mosque without anyone knowing that she was "Mrs. Hosseini," the wife of Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei and the daughter-in-law of the Leader of the Islamic Revolution.

Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei himself has repeatedly tasted the bitter taste of "poverty, debt, and borrowing," just as "Agha Rahman," the grocer at the corner of the Al-Mahdi seminary area in the 1990s, had often recorded his and his brother's names in the debit book of his small shop, to be settled in the following days after receiving their stipends.

He made "service to the underprivileged" the cornerstone of his social activities and a repeated recommendation to his students. One of his students said: "The most prominent social points he emphasized were matters such as volunteer service camps or disaster relief, like during floods. He stressed continuity in providing services."

He established institutions to serve the underprivileged, and without any mention of his own name, he provided continuous assistance to tens of thousands of underprivileged people. Preserving human dignity, accompanied by field workers investigating the conditions of the underprivileged, sending women to attend to families headed by females, and recommending the continuation of service—along with emphasizing that his name not be mentioned and that all these services be attributed to the office of the Supreme Leader—were among the characteristics of the service institutions under his supervision.

Many of the underprivileged in various areas of Qom, such as Jafariyeh, Kahak, Qomrud, Qanavat, Niroogah, and Khakfaraj, thought they were receiving gifts and services through anonymous benefactors or the office of the Supreme Leader. Likewise, those in charge of medical centers, such as the Quran and Etrat Clinic, did not realize that the costs of these medical services for the underprivileged—from injections and IVs to dental services—were covered by the efforts of Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei and funded through public budgets.

Canceling classes to send seminary students to provide relief to flood victims in Khuzestan, and converting the seminaries under his management into centers for supplying juice to COVID-19 patients, along with emphasizing the presence of students in burying and washing the bodies of those who died from COVID-19, are further examples of his service to the underprivileged.

His students have repeatedly heard from their teacher, Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei, say: "The weaker and more destitute a person is, the more important!" Just as, after hearing reports of his students' services during the Khuzestan floods, he said: "These deeds are the identity of a seminary student, and incidentally, serving the people opens up doors of knowledge for students." He attributed part of his father's successes to serving the underprivileged and expressed this in the same gathering of students so that all would hear.

The recommendation to serve the underprivileged was a pervasive theme of his in administrative and non-seminary meetings as well. Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei told one of his colleagues in the elite management and technology sector: "Do not take serving the underprivileged lightly; God loves these people. Other tasks have their own place."

In the subsequent parts of this article, other dimensions of Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei's social and executive conduct will be examined.

Sources:

• Interview with Farid al-Din Haddad Adel (brother-in-law of Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei)
• Remarks by Dr. Haddad Adel at the Imam Hassan Mojtaba (a.s.) Mosque in the Harandi neighborhood
• Remarks by Eskandar Hosseinof, Azerbaijani missionary and director of the Nur Foundation in Azerbaijan
• Interview with Hujjat al-Islam Reza Aliabadi (a student of Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei)
• Interview with Hujjat al-Islam Mohammad Javad Akbari (a student of Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei)