Some anthropologists are starting to question if the anthropology of modern-day Islam renders Muslim worlds as “too sober.”1 The anthropology of Islam has largely neglected studying Muslims who step outside of normative-legal Islam by, for example, drinking wine or consuming psychedelics. This approach often reduces Islam to piety, and depicts alternative expressions of Islam as mere “pockets of resistance.”2 These “pockets of resistance” are often seen as cultural exceptions: it is important to ask if intoxicants can be an extension of Islam in a Muslim’s personal religiosity, rather than simply a transgression of Islamic law.3 Consuming intoxicating substances can be made meaningful because of Islamic beliefs. This is not to negate the importance of piety within Islam, but rather to “avoid seeing imaginings of Islam as logically contrasting with everyday ambiguities and with European national cultures.”4 I hope to further complicate anthropological renderings of Islam as a “sober” religion by emphasizing the individual agency Muslims use to justify their consumption of psychedelic substances within an Islamic framework. Psilocybin, otherwise known as “magic mushrooms,” are hallucinogenic mushrooms used for centuries by humans for their positive effects, including self-reflection, connection with others, happiness, and the stimulation of language.5 In this work I will explore what is at stake for North American Muslims who decide to consume magic mushrooms, neither endorsing nor renouncing psychedelic experimentation.
I was introduced to my virtual interlocutors Sughra Ahmed and Hena Malik by the Psychedelic Science Conference ran by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) which took place in June of 2023.6 MAPS identifies in their mission statement as a “non-profit research and educational organization that develops medical, legal, and cultural contexts for people to benefit from the careful uses of psychedelics and marijuana.”7 Sughra Ahmed and HenaMalik were guest speakers at this conference and contributed thoughtfully to the discussion titled “Islam and Psychedelics.”8 Sughra Ahmed is a religious studies scholar from the United Kingdom who specializes in religion, policy, and advocacy.9 Sughra agreed to participate in a 2018 clinical trial ran by Johns Hopkins University in the United States of America which sought to “investigate whether religious leaders’ lives were altered by their encounter with psychedelics.”10 Sughra was the only Muslim to participate in the trial out of 24 religious leaders.11 Sughra agreed to participate for one particularly compelling reason: “I wanted—I needed—for Muslims to be at the table for this particular project.”12 Sughra feels Muslims—specifically Muslim women—are underrepresented in trials of this sort.13 In the trial, Sughra experienced overwhelming waves of sadness and empathy, and felt that “human beings are, kind of, covering our hearts with a veil—masking, if you like…”14 Sughra connected this feeling to the current global refugee crisis and its associated generational trauma: she believes that we must be “using our hearts” in these discussions.15 Furthermore, Sughra’s dose was felt religiously: “I felt the presence of God which is something. I felt no need to touch God or to turn around and look—I felt completely at ease and in connection with God. And that was everything.”16 Psychedelics did not inhibit Sughra’s religious expression—or intoxicate her—but rather enhanced her experience of God while strengthening her connection with fellow Muslims suffering from modern-day conditions of displacement and generational trauma.
My second virtual interlocutor, Hena Malik, also spoke about her experiences with psychedelics as a Muslim in the 2023 Psychedelic Science Conference. Hena is currently pursuing her Master’s degree in Psychoactive Pharmaceuticals at the University of Wisonsin-Madison with the goal to “create a community that destigmatizes psychedelic use in relation to religion, using it as a tool to become more spiritual.”17 Whereas Sughra discovered psilocybin in a clinical trial setting, Hena was brought to psychedelics because of her personal experiences with mental illness. Hena struggled with dissociation for multiple years during her teenagehood, sought psychiatric help, and was prescribed psychiatric medications. 18 These medications led Hena to feel numb to the world around her, and she experienced similarly negative spiritual effects: “I felt like I was losing my relationship with God. I felt like I couldn’t show up for God.”19 Hena was unable to pray or do traditional activities and rituals, leading her to feel disconnected from God and seek an alternative way of healing.20 Hena soon found psilocybin and used it to treat her mental health and repair her spirituality: “When I tried psilocybin for the first time I felt like I was able to receive a hug from God, in a way, of ‘This is okay…it’s okay that you can’t show up right now.’”21 Hena claims that psilocybin saved her life when modern psychiatric treatments couldn’t, and further strengthened her relationship with God when she was unable to practice her religion to her fullest extent.22
Human history has been intertwined with varying substances; these alliances constantly fluctuating and shifting through time. Muslims are not separate of this history, as Muslim societies, too, have been home to experimentation with earth-based substances such as hashish. Present-day Muslims who choose to consume psilocybin must be placed within this rich history of human psychedelic experimentation across millennia. Further, the negotiation and deliberation present across the Balkans-to-Bengal complex truly underlines how boundaries of halal/haram can be bent, twisted, and sculpted by Muslims to fit their personal, spiritual, and medical needs.
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Ahmed, Sughra, Malik, Hena. “Islam and Psychedelics.” Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies Psychedelic Science 2023. June 2023, 28:47. https://2023.psychedelicscience.org/sessions/islam-and-psychedelics/.
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