Lawful (Halal) Sustenance  

The Holy Prophet (s) said, “Help your children to become good people; because, anyone can bring out disobedience from his child.”[1] Accordingly, our father was not negligent in raising Ibrahim and us other children at all. Of course, our father was a very virtuous man. He used to go to the Mosque and religious meetings. He cared a lot about lawful sustenance. He knew very well that the Prophet (s) had said, “Worshiping has ten parts. Nine parts of it are obtaining lawful sustenance.”[2] Therefore, when a group of hoodlums bothered him in the Amiriyeh (Shapur) neighborhood and didn’t allow him to earn a lawful income, he sold the shop which was an inheritance from his parents and worked in a sugar factory. He was a worker there. He stood in front of the furnace from morning till night. It was at that time that he was able to buy a small house. Ibrahim said several times, “If my father raised good children, it was because of the hardships which he went through to earn a lawful income. Whenever he remembered his childhood, he would say, “My father helped me to memorize the Quran. He always took me to the Mosque with him. Most of the time, we went to the Ayatollah Nuri Mosque near the Sarcheshmeh Intersection. There were religious meetings held there by the name of Hazrat Ali Asghar (a). He (my father) had the honor of serving there.” I remember in the last years of his primary school Ibrahim did something which made our father very angry. He told him, “Ibrahim! Go out and don’t come back home until nighttime.” Ibrahim did not come home until nighttime. The whole family was worried that what had he eaten for lunch? But, everyone obeyed our father. It was nighttime when Ibrahim came back. He politely said hello to everyone. I asked immediately, “What did you do for lunch brother?!” Our father looked unhappy but he was waiting for Ibrahim’s response. Ibrahim answered very slowly, “I was walking in the street. I saw an old woman who had done a lot of shopping and didn’t know what to do or how to go home. I went and helped her. I took her shopping to her house. The old woman thanked me a lot and gave me a five rial coin. I didn’t want to accept, but she insisted a lot. I was sure that this money was lawful, because I had worked for it. At noontime I bought some bread with that money and ate it.” When our father heard the story he smiled satisfactorily. He was happy that his son had learned the lesson of his father and cared about lawful earnings. The friendship of our father with Ibrahim was more than the relationship of a father and a son. There was an unusual love between these two which visibly resulted in the development of Ibrahim’s personality. But this friendly relationship did not last very long. Ibrahim was a teenager when he lost the support of his father. One sad sunset he felt the heavy shadow of being an orphan. From that time on, he continued living as great men do. In those years, most of the friends and acquaintances advised him to participate in sports. He accepted this idea.

[1] Nahj al-Fasahah, tradition no. 370.

[2] Bihar al-Anwar, vol. 103, p. 7.