Moral codes and virtues in personality of martyr Modarres
You have studied the history of late Mudarres. He was a scrawny Sayyid wearing a canvas cloak. One of the abuses of that poet against him was" the one who puts on a canvas cloak". Such a man stood so firmly against that hector. Anyone have experienced that time knows that the age of Rida Shah was different from that of Muhammad-Rida Shah. He was such a bully that our history had very few examples of him. In Majlis once Rida Shah had asked Mudarris:" What do you want from me?" Modarres replied:" I want you not to be!" This gentleman whose class I once attended had set up a class in Sepahsalar School, currently Shahid Mutahhari School. Once I attended his class. He seemed to be like an ordinary person, a simple talabeh) student of theology (who was teaching, but he was spiritually powerful. It was at a time when he was in the center of that political tensions in the Majlis. He would go to the Majlis after that class. When he attended the Majlis, he was a man whom everyone had a high regard for. I had seen the Majlis of that time. It appeared that the Majlis looked forward to Modarres entering. Despite being on bad terms with him, the Majlis sensed to be incomplete in the absence of Mudarres. When Mudarres entered, it seemed that some new event had happened. What was it for? It was because he was a man who heeded neither position nor wealth nor any other mundane things. Neither position nor wealth interested him. It has been related that once he was preparing his hubble-bubble for smoking. The ruler of that day- when I say ruler you may not know what it implies- entered the house of Mudarres, who told him" Your Eminence, while I am pouring water into the jar to prepare the hookah, please prepare the brazier", thus belittling him so that he would not dare to make any request. Mudarres treated that governor in this way, asking him to prepare the brazier for him to smoke water pipe, asking a man whom everyone bowed down. He treated such dignitaries like this let they should allow themselves to make a request from him.
He was not in search of position and power
I was witness to an episode when somebody had written something. This story goes back to the time when Rida Khan was not yet a king but a brutish bully. Somebody came to Mudarres and said: I have written something for department of justice. May I beg you to give it to somebody to take to His Eminence Rida Khan to attend to my problem! Mudarris replied: Rida Khan does not know how justice department is written. You want me to give the letter to him who does not know A from Z?" He did not say so behind his back; in his presence he said it. He was this sort of man.
Why so? Because he was righteous; he was not attached to carnal passions." Hast thou seen him who chooseth for his god his own lust?" »1« He had not taken his carnal passions as his God. He did not act for name or fame but for God. One who acts for God, his living condition is what you are aware of. No worse condition is conceivable for him. Why should he then fawn over the king or so and so? He feared none. When Rida Shah invaded the Majlis, the bullies accompanying him cried viva Rida Khan! Mudarres stood up and shouted:" Down with Rida Khan! Viva me!" You don't understand what it meant to stand against Rida Khan. But Mudarres stood. It was because he was freed from carnal passions; he was righteous not dependent.
He had suppressed his Carnal desires
All dependencies emanate from the dependency one has on oneself. When one's soul is dependent, all dependencies outside of the soul are traceable to the soul. Hence, if something is imposed on the soul, one will accept. If one finds that something counters one's aspirations, one will be humble. If man is delivered from this dependency on the self, he will become free. Such a soul does not fear anyone; if all powers of the world come together to frighten him, he will not fear, because one believes that at most he will be killed. Nothing is worse than this, something that our people seek. They ask me to pray for them to be martyred. They ask me several times in a day to pray for them to achieve martyrdom. I tell them I pray for them to emerge victorious, God willing.
May God grant you all success! I hope you will be sanctioned. May God give peace and blessing to all the martyrs, who served the nation such as Martyr Raja'i, whose martyrdom anniversary is approaching, the late Bahonar and others whom we have lost! Of course, we suffered a lot, yet the system remained intact. It was because people supported them and the nation succeeded them, not the grandees and the nobles. In those days if a prime minister got killed, confusion would erupt. If a king died the entire country would be disrupted. Today if the president achieves martyrdom, another will succeed. The entire Iran is full of Beheshti. »1« Well! People believe that Beheshtis was from them. This is not something we have imported from abroad. People cry that Beheshti is from them and one of them has departed, being substituted by another. When Raja'i died, another one succeeded him. If any one of us is killed, someone else will take his place. This is the situation of Iran. If we preserve this state, each of us has a substitute who will fill our empty place. If the situation changes and the condition prevailing in former time is restored, again with the death of a prime minister, for instance, the country will be chaotic. May God protect all of you and grant us success in acting according to Islamic laws and in Islamizing our ministries. If, God forbid, there are devious persons, you should advise them, and if it is not useful remove them, as we do not need such people in a ministry. He can go and do a different job. God willing, you will be successful and sanctioned.
Sahifeh-ye Imam, vol. 61, pp. 389-91