Imam acted exactly according to all the instructions that he gave from the start, and in actuality, was an embodiment of those very instructions. He himself was the book ‘Forty Hadith’ that he had written in his youth. Suppose he spoke about riya (performing any action for the purpose of other than the pleasure of Allah) and reproached it, he himself would stay away from it with intensity.
I remember one day my son entered the house wearing trousers which I had patched up at one knee. Imam asked: “Why is Hassan dishevelled like this?” I jokingly replied: “It’s the life of poor people, Agha.”
Immediately, his face became drawn, and he said: “You don’t want to do riya.” I said: “No, why riya?” He said: “Be careful. Not paying attention to outward physical appearances has value. However, if you want to show (people) that I am such and such, it is riya.”
Imam said this sentence to me with the same intensity with which he had, at the age of 30 years, written in his book!
A memoirs by Fatema Tabatabai (Imam’s daughter-in-law)