What you are reading are the memories of Mrs. Zahra Mostafavi, the daughter of the great founder of the Islamic Revolution:
What I remember from my childhood is that I was about 8 years old, my sister was 10 years old and my older sister (Mr. Eshraghi’s wife) was 12 years old. We used to play puppets with the children of the house next door to the left of the house, which was Mr. Kamalund’s house. Imam had told us not to go to Mr. Kamalund’s house.
He was one of the scholars and one of the Imam’s friends. This friendship also has an interesting story. We were told not to go there. Whenever you want to play, their daughter – whose name was Tahere Khanam – would come to you. The roofs of our houses were facing each other. We were all children, but they had a 14-15-year-old servant whose voice had recently been hybridized. That’s why he ordered that you should not go to their house.
When the man was returning from the Salmasi Mosque and coming home, he heard the sound of a wolf barking at our children from the back of the alley. When they came home, they asked our worker – Zivar – “Where are the children?” He answered: “Mr. Kamalund’s house.” They said: “Go tell them to come.” We were very scared. We returned home and the three of us went underground, the imam’s address was mostly to my older sister who was assigned. The imam took a thin dry stick and firmly hit the edge of the basement wall and said: “Didn’t I say don’t go?” Why did you go?” They were very angry. The stick broke and a piece hit my sister’s foot. We got up and went to the room and I saw that my sister’s leg was slightly bruised.
At night, I said to the man: “The piece of wood that you hit the wall and broke, fell on Siddiqa’s leg and bruised her leg.” Imam asked: “Really?” “Yes,” I said. They said: “Go tell him to come.” Sadiqa Khanum came and the imam saw her feet and gave her money! I said to myself, I wish my leg was bruised! The imam was so careful about the Shari’a issues, while he was their child and they didn’t do it on purpose. With all the humanity, attention and love that Imam had, we counted on him a lot. Of course, they were right, I was very busy.