The Imam firmly believed that as far as possible he should not burden himself on others and to do his own tasks by himself. In the holy city of Najaf, sometimes it occurred that the Imam was on the rooftop and from there he would notice that the lights of the kitchen or toilet were not switched off. He would not order his wife or others who were on the upper floor to go and switch them off; rather, he would climb down three storeys in darkness and switch the lights off himself and search to see if there were other lights on. Sometimes he would look for pen and paper which were kept on the second floor of the house but would never tell anybody—not even his grandsons, the sons of late Hajj Mostafa—to go and get them for him; rather he would get up, climb the steps, fetch the pen and paper and return to his room.
Name of the narrator: Hujjat al-Islam wal Muslimeen Sayyed Hamid Rohani; Exclusive Memoirs from Imam Khomeini’s Life, vol. 1.
Title of the Book: Impressions and Memoirs about Imam Khomeini's Practical Behaviour, vol. 1, chapter one, page 63