SAEDNEWS: In a rare personal memory shared in Khatte Hezbollah, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei recounted the day his father died—revealing that the entire household inventory amounted to a mere 45,000 tomans, underscoring a lifetime of humble devotion.
According to Saed News, the 227th issue of Khatte Hezbollah magazine published a moving anecdote from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, delivered on 5 July 1996 (14 Tir 1375). Reflecting on his tenure as president of Iran, the future Supreme Leader described how, despite the trappings of high office, neither his elderly father nor mother ever requested to renovate or embellish their modest family home.
“I had the resources of the presidency at my disposal,” he recalled, “yet this elderly couple never once asked me to transform their house or to lavishly decorate it.” According to Khamenei, his parents continued living in the same unaltered residence: his father until 1986 and his mother throughout the entire presidential term.
When his father passed away, the Leader explained, officials catalogued every item in the home—excluding his father’s personal library, which was assessed separately. The total value of all household goods reached approximately 45,000 tomans. “In those days,” Khamenei noted, “45,000 tomans wouldn’t even buy a refrigerator or a stove.”
The modest sum carried extra poignancy given that Khamenei’s father had served as an imam and respected cleric in their city for fifty years, amassing many disciples and admirers. Yet, he and his wife lived with “an almost ascetic detachment from worldly comforts,” as the Leader put it, “a fact that brings great pride to the Islamic Republic.”
Observers say the anecdote serves to highlight the personal piety and austerity that the Supreme Leader has long preached. By sharing this recollection, Ayatollah Khamenei underscored how true leadership, in his view, lies in living simply and resisting ostentation—principles he has consistently advocated throughout his decades in public life.
