During Mamun’s caliphate and at his insistence, His Eminence was forcibly sent to Khorasan and accepted the post of Mamun’s viceroy. In Khorasan he held meetings and debates with scholars of all religions, and they all acknowledged his eminence and bowed before his greatness and knowledge.
One resident of Balkh tells how he visited Imam Riza. He ordered a tablecloth to be laid for food, and all the servants, even the dark-skinned, sat down around it and began to eat together with his lordship. The guest said that he thought it would be better if the tablecloth for the servants was laid separately. His Eminence answered: “Calm down, our God is one, and we are all from one father and mother, and everyone’s reward depends on his deeds.”
Every time when His Eminence was about to eat, before starting the meal, he would send some of the food that was on the tablecloth to the poor and needy.
In the evenings, Imam Riza ate little and often did not sleep until morning. He fasted a lot and never forgot the three-time fast of every month – on the first Thursday at the beginning and at the end of the month and on Wednesday in the middle of the month.
On dark nights, His Eminence went to the homes of the poor and distributed everything that could be used to help them.
In 203 AH, when his Holiness was fifty-five years old, the Abbasid caliph, who feared the Imam’s growing popularity among the people, ordered him poisoned. Imam Riza was martyred at the end of the month of Safar and was buried in Mashhad. Today, the mausoleum of his eminence is a shrine for Shiites all over the world.
Worshiping God does not depend on repeated prayers and fasting. Worship and worship require a person to be thoughtful, reflect on the tasks of his religion and his duties, and under any conditions be able to determine his task and try to fulfill it.
Purity is the moral quality of divine prophets.
Relying on Allah and trusting Him means that a person does not fear anyone except the Lord Almighty.
Helping the poor and needy is better than charity in the way of God.