Psychedelics are NOT haram | Mufti Abu Layth

people right I wanted to speak um about psychedelics. Now this is something that [snorts] you know people have I have spoken about it in the past couple of people have asked me that look MUI uh what is the Islamic understanding on psychedelics uh Sauron you're doing it with the super chat much love right now psychedelics are not haram okay I now I When I say that, people will feel that,

you know, what on earth how how can you say that? Um, that they're not haram. They are not an intoxicant. Okay? They do not intoxicate the brain in the way alcohol does or anything like that. They are what people, true people who know what they are, will refer to as enthogens.

These are not hallucinogens. They're not I mean they are hallucinogens but really they are enthogens things that connect you with God. Right? They are a window into another realm. Now there have been a lot of studies, incredible amount of studies done on these um and I'll just share with you as an example.

This is a just to give you an idea. This is a picture of the brain uh when it is on psychoactive uh kind of uh substances. You can see look the way the brain is it comes alive and the connections it makes.

It is incredible that that it is virtually impossible to reach that kind of neural connectivity uh in the brain. You could not I mean you just could not do that without um you know accessing these kind of windows. And I feel that there's a you see there's a problem and that is that we you see in this day and age we're so influenced I'm just trying to bring up here um

is this it right now right so we've been so influenced by what we're told by the current politicians So people will say look because they branched this all under this is all branched under drugs. So people will say drugs. Now drugs is a very negative thing.

You know, it has a very horrible connotation to it because it's to do with abuse and it's to do with crime and it's to do with so people switch off when they hear the term drugs. And that's because obviously drugs is a horrible term. But these just because the politicians have put it with them does not mean that's what they are in that sense. These are worlds apart. It really is incredibly insane that in the 20th century in 2020 we are saying grown adults cannot consume particular plants or particular

you know natural products like let's say mushrooms um that are you know active with psilocybin. They can't consume that without, you know, potentially risking jail or a criminal violation. This doesn't make any sense, right? Just because, you know, certain politicians don't feel it's the case.

But there is a legacy of human civilization that for thousands of years has really spoken about this about the the the kind of wonder that this does. It opens how it connects humanity and and I want to give you a parallel that you see because these things what they do is they expand your consciousness.

Like imagine you're on dialup the old dialup for the internet. These things will put you on broadband fiber optic kind of [laughter] receptivity of consciousness and I think this is an a suitable example. This is the electromagnetic spectrum people. Now this is light as as it comes you know the electromagnetic uh wave what it brings with it.

Now you will have all of these different things that will be right in front of us. I mean they will as you can see from radio waves to microwaves to infrared to visible rays. Then you will have uh ultraviolet it will go to x-rays, gamma rays. We that tiny portion that you can see in the middle right that that um right there with the rainbow if that makes any sense to you.

Uh sorry if you if you can see that that is all that is open to the human visual field that is all that we can see. The other things are absolutely there. They exist. See them, right? We can't see them. But it doesn't mean that they don't exist. They absolutely do. And I feel that this is a uh a suitable example.

Sorry, I'm just trying to close this. I got to get uh I'm going to switch how I do this from now on the right. So this what what you can see there is that tiny thing and let me give you an example imagine the percentage of the vis visible field is like this if I had it's actually not point [laughter] and you will have let let me actually give you exemplify by giving an example

imagine I had £10,000 right that is the visual £10,000 or I could do it the other way as in you could go with space. Okay, but let's say £10,000 money makes a lot of sense to people. That is the entire visual the electromagnetic spectrum out there. All you get is £35 out of it.

That's all you get out of £10,000. The £35 is the visual field that we have access to visible light. uh that's all that we can see. The rest of it is still there. It's not that it doesn't exist. It's just we don't have access to it. Now, in a similar way, consciousness works the same. That the consciousness is there, but we just don't have access to that layer of consciousness.

And certain things, certain cheats I feel in this uh cosmos, [laughter] not even cosmos, in nature, sorry, have been set out as a window. And I've said before that look, I actually feel that many of the great mystics of Islam were upon like they many of them were, if you want to use the term, tripping.

many of them were. They probably just did not know it. Now, I know that I did recommend this great uh recent podcast by Joe Rogan where he's speaking with uh Brian I I find his diff his surname difficult to pronounce uh and Graeme Hancock. So he has there's the three of them discussing the um discussing psychedelics but the Illusinian mysteries and that's basically going back to this holy place where for 2,000 years people would go there they would have a pilgrimage way before the Christian

pilgrimage or way before Islam. this pilgrimage dating back and many of the great people including uh Plato and Aristotle and all these great uh philosophers would have visited Elusus which would have been uh in Greece modern day Greece. Now what used to happen there people weren't allowed to say. So there's this understanding that there were may have been certain psychedelic trips involved and things like because they had to drink and stuff like this.

But fast forwarding um what I feel that many of the Muslims, early saints and even later saints that you people who they pontify them as saints but great people uh whether it was whether it was uh juned aldi whether it was Mans whether it was Arabi most of these people would have had some kind of psychedelic experience and What's interesting is in that podcast with Joe Rogan, they speak about urgots.

Now, urgot is a particular kind of fungus that would grow naturally on uh on on on stock like on especially grains. Uh whether it was wheat, barley, whether it was things like rye, uh whether it was corn, these kind of things would naturally get infected with this fungi.

And this which is called urgot what it would result is in an erotized product which was psychedelic. It was psychoactive. So people who were consuming that were having these kind of trips. Now there's uh an investigation going in. Now some people are studying the they're looking into exploring uh academically the Salem witch trials and they feel that some of the rye that that community was consuming was erotized and hence it made them think that what these things they were seeing uh you know was these women were witches but it was

actually it can be explained and I find that so amazing. Seriously, when and when you look at our uh literature, the Islamic literature, you will see that if I can just and this is uh let me just bring this up. This is actually pre uh Islam. This is not Islamic. This is dating back few thousand years. And you can see these kind of seals that were made.

It's very clear that the kind of imagery that these were people that were on uh a psychoactive kind of trip. And I want to share with you guys. Yeah, if I can just bring this up. Um, and those of you, sorry, my mouse is kind of playing up today. It's really annoying. [laughter] [gasps] All right. So, Mhm.

If I can just if I can just bring this up people, show you this. This what you can see uh peanum seed in Arabic is called the Harmala. Now this is something that is very widespread in um uh in the Middle East and it's it's called Syrian um you'll have it's actually this harla comes from the especially predominant in Syria and other parts of the Middle East.

Uh its actual name I'm trying to bring this up here on momento. This is really annoying me today. [laughter] Right. What is going on, people? All right. All right. No, just isn't doing it for me. I'm getting right. Okay, that's better.

[snorts] Um, let me just this pagan seed that you had many people were using uh this in history especially in the Middle East. Now, what this does, that's better. Right now, ah no, not again.

Right. So, you won't be able to see this very clearly. I was hoping it would come up much larger, but that's the history of this paganum seed. Now, this is actually a MAU inhibitor. Okay. So what that does, what that means for those of you who are not familiar with it [snorts] is we have these monoamine uh oxidase uh enzymes within our within us naturally within our gut and within us.

Now these things if you were to consume um some DMT let's say what would happen a dimethylryptoamine which is the spirit molecule why is this not it's really getting annoying now right so um I'm trying to bring this up right you will what will happen is these MAU inhibitors will inhibit it.

So if a person ingested DMT it would be killed off. [snorts] The interesting thing is our body naturally has these receptors and you question well how does that work then because how does our body naturally have these receptors and studies have been done that have shown um if you take a look at this this will show that uh DMT being found in animals so like rabbit where it's being found in rats now there are uh assumptions that it is naturally produced within humans.

There's studies about whether it's it's found traces of it in the pineal gland or other parts. And where is this coming from? But it is something that we have the receptors for. Now what this harmonad this particular seed does is it it is a mau inhibitor. So it will once you consume that what happens is it blocks that enzyme.

So you say well okay and why is that special? Well you see then I bring your attention to something like this arundo donx. Okay, now you say, "Well, Muy, what the hell is Arundo Donax?" [laughter] [gasps] Right now, those of you that uh don't know, let me people like Roomie often when he speaks, he often addresses his uh his flute, right?

He often calls it nay. And he and he speaks by addressing and he's talking to his uh um to his flute. Now the flute is made out of arundo donacs. Now arundo donax as you can see is these giant reads and you can see there it contains DMT. It contains DMT. Now you can see that right there and you can take a look here.

Look what are some of the traditional usages of Arundo Donax. Here it is that it was used often to as you can see there as well to to create flute. You can see flutes and instruments were made with it. So this right now I'm going to bring up in front of you uh and it this is a translation of one of Room's poems where he is speaking about that the seed the paganum seed which is the harla seed uh it covered the

darkness and the truth was seen uh this is in his uh mathnowi you will see there's Uh, another one as well that's quite interesting. Let me bring this one up. This somebody had sent it to me with the uh with the reference as well. Didn't you say uh the translation that the devil urinates in the wine cup right away?

The sheh said, "My cup is filled so that not a single pegum seed could fit into it." Now what he does is most of his many of his gazels are addressing this uh the nay which is his flute. So I actually do feel that you see this is something that it's very likely that he would have had this psychedelic experience uh just like many other people and I want to if I can just bring up here this is interesting as well

um you will see that many historians when they spoke about um this harm They mentioned what its uses were and you can see that Awam speaks about uh it in Spain that it was used in bread often that's amongst one of the classical usage uh for that particular seed the paganum seed and just the the traditional you know the traditional kind of approach to all of this you have to remember something people in the past

they didn't have this culture of drugs. So this word did not exist. People were not even sometimes aware of what is causing a particular reaction to certain things like uh like we mentioned people could have been having erotized grain with urgot growing on it. people could have liked. So here you've got a fine example of roomie often making drinks out of uh pegum seed which is a mau inhibitor which means that if you now receive DMT it will be active and then obsessed with his flute which

was made from the particular read highly active with DMT. This is a clear example. So the and the reason I'm saying this is that many ancient traditions had these kind of things and you can see how because they didn't have a culture to explain it. So one of them is like if you look at the ancient um Hindu u traditions including the Persians.

So in the rigas they speak of this drink called s. Now that's fascinating because s is this whole thing of the gods. Okay, it is the the fruit of the gods. That's what the drink uh if I bring this up here you can see this and I wanted to share this with you that look people who understand the identity of the plant s could use it to empower themselves and this comes in the avesta as well and it's mentioned as hom in uh the fari and the reason being is

that uh in far they would often you know you'd get the s going to a like um it for example ha seven would go to subt um that kind of link. So the the or whether it would go which direction it would take is is is debatable but the point is that you see these coralates. So this drink s I just wanted to say check this out people.

It is argued to be amanita muscaria which is a particular mushroom. Now, this is what certain people like Wassan and others who've researched it argue. This the only way it becomes incredibly active is if it it has to pass through urine. [laughter] Now, that's interesting, isn't it?

Because when you look at the Hindu tradition of um of how drinking urine and it was something that was done and the urine of the cows because the ancient civilizations that used uh amanita mascaria would often wait for the deers or other animals to consume it and urinate it. So the fact that if these cows were consuming ammonita muscaria um and urinating it and people were drinking that urine they would have this opening of consciousness and thereby inadvertently they would deify these you

know these animals because they would think well this is where we're getting this from you [laughter] and it just explains it's it's I just think when you think about it it really does um blow one's mind. I will um there is also if I can find here there was uh to the extent that some people had had made had presented hadith.

Now obviously the hadith are not going to be authentic but here is a uh I mean they are mentioned in the books of certain madin like Ibn Bashal brings it and other people that this is a hadith that look I just want to speak about the the the description so the fact that this narrative floated whether it's not that whether the prophet said it but the fact that this existed in society for somebody to say look that that I swear whereby the Lord who has my life in his hands that that this peanum seed that nothing of it

emerges not its root not a shoot of it offshoot not its flower or leaf or anything except each thing has an angel tied to it until it reaches is until this thing reaches where the angel can reach.

And indeed in its root and its offshoot you will find a certain a certain power and indeed in its seed you will find a shif for every ailment. It says 72 ailments but that's used as uh a kind of exaggeration.

Now even though this I'm not you see whether this is a sahi hadith or not uh people have said the people in the chain are problematic and that may be the case but I'm speaking about the narrative to have existed. You see it's fascinating that they experienced this. Now here is another hadith which you can see this is from Tmidi which is often described by people as the night of the jin.

Now it is very fascinating that Abdullahbn uh he goes with the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and in this in this particular hadith he is asked that um what do you have with you that you know do you have any water and he says I have nab and that is a particular uh it can have intoxicantlike features to it and but the hanafi mabs always argued it was not an intoxicant and it can be made out of anything.

It can be made out of barley, out of wheat, it can be made out of dates. It can be made out of they can make this drink out of many things. It's not just uh dates. Often they did used to make it out of dates. Now you can see in this hadith that the prophet says to him that oh um you know that that is indeed a pure uh that is indeed a pure drink.

Now what's interesting is I wanted to share if I could the hadith the hadith with you guys that look you've got here this is so there's a very lengthy description to it.

Now in this hadith it begins by it's this is hadith in this book it's uh 2861 and this is ini the commentary by al- maliki the legend dawn from Muslim Spain and the hadith mentions that um says that the messenger of Allah had gone and he took abd with him to these outskirts of Makkah to this kind of scape landscape of Mecca

and he sat him down and then he says there was this line drawn. Okay. Ali um and the prophet said uh and the prophet said do not go out of this line stay there. And then he goes on to say that the and the prophet said that you might see things, you might see figures, you might see people communicating with you.

Uh and the prophet said don't worry about it. They are not talking to you. They will not be talking to you. Um and then he says whilst I sat there says I saw these figures as though they were these strange what is this zoot it's a strange Arabic word uh some people said oh maybe it was talking about a particular tribe maybe a Sudanese tribe maybe this the editor said oh maybe it was the zat it was which is the Arabic for jut [laughter] who are from the Punjab region of

Pakistan. Jat Jat, [laughter] we're ethnically Jat as well, you see. So, but that's not what it was. It wasn't the Jat people. It was the zut was these crazy like these incomprehensible figures. He says, I saw the strange hair, strange bodies. I I don't recognize them.

He says, I don't see yet nakedness. I don't see these kind of or the it's like I I can't seem to make sense of what I'm seeing. Um he says that they would come up to me but they wouldn't cross this line. I could not see them crossing this particular line. um until the night ended.

Um and then he says the prophet came and he put his head down and as he kind of lay down he put his head by my lap. Um and he says that he says and then the prophet fell asleep and when he would sleep sometimes he would have a slight snore to him.

Um he says so whilst I'm sitting there with the prophet uh whose head was on my lap asleep he says all of a sudden I see these figures again this time people in white uh but they were so beautiful he says that Allah can only understand the beauty that I was seeing and then he says a group of these figures come and sit by the prophet's head and a group of them they surround the prophet and they and he says I can hear that they're communicating that wow they're praising the prophet.

Um so then they go on to say now this hadith now he carries on with his description. Um so this this hadith in all honesty people that experience if true which was then described as maybe this was the jin.

This if anything would have been a kind of most likely would have been a psychoactive experience uh that would have had and he explains that I had with me this particular drink. Now you see this is where I people would say no that would just be him communicating with the gin.

Now, okay, I mean that's, you know, one way, but does he ever have these experiences? Does does this ever happen to him on a normal occasion? Does this ever Now, people could say, well, what okay, but if he drinks these drinks regularly, why why doesn't he have these experiences on other times? You see it's interesting like I mentioned with this erotized kind of thing that there were certain at times there was certain um let's say grain that would become whether it was erotized or obtain a uh it become a afflicted with a particular fungi unplanned unscheduled it would just

happen. It's not like something that people would generally seek out, but it was widespread. Uh my point of saying this is that I do feel that this is within our tradition, but it's just because it was unnoticed. Um you know, people they wouldn't know it. So they would just assume that it's it's just normal stuff.

I wanted to actually share here as well. Uh if I can let me just let me see if I can bring this up. Yeah, I actually feel that a verse of the Quran if anything uh explains an experience that is an approximation to to be understood by people if their consciousness has expanded in in such a way.

And that is inah like let me bring this verse up for you. Now people will say that okay no this verse is just speaking about Allah but nobody really understands the this verse in its true imagery that Allah that uh that you see Allah is the light of the heavens. Now that much you can understand but look the example the similitude of his light.

Now, if I'll just read it. Now, this verse 35, you can take a look at the translation.

Now, just have a read of that. This is the Abdullah Yusf Ali that Allah is the light of the heavens and the earth. That part you can understand the parable of his light. It's as if there was a were a niche. is kind of like a like a cutout in a wall and within it a lamp and the lamp in a glass and the glass as though it was a star lit from a blessed tree, an olive tree, neither from the east nor of the west whose oil is a flamed without being put on fire without you know it's yet luminous um though fire scarcely touched it light upon light.

Now I would definitely argue that this understanding is an approximation. It is uh for people who have had certain experiences in this world and that these verses would would resonate with people like that. So I've tried to show that look there are certain um there are certain whether a person wants to read this verse of the Quran in that way or whether a person wants to look at the hadith of Abdulbah in that way that you know where he's

describing all these visions and having this particular drink with him this uh drink which the prophet said oh that's a good drink it is indeed purifying Whether it's this other narration which was by I mentioned that look this particular the paganum seed it is blessed angel and it reaches where the angel reaches and it cures everything and it expands and and you know what and I'm not saying whether that hadith has to be sah but the narrative had to have existed to the extent that awam is highlighting and other people that this paganum seed

is something widespread and people use it in things like bread to the fact that Roomie often speaks of it in his poetry, the paganum seed and why his drink is made out of this harla and so on and and yet he often addresses his nay the flute and the flute is made from uh a particular read that contains often and I I showed that it is often used historically for making flutes and that is known to have contained things like DMT.

What I'm trying to show is that I feel that this has been part and parcel of the tradition but it's just it didn't have a name. So people didn't understand that they were you see today it has a name. So because of that people they you know they delineate and they say no no no you know we we're not going to you know this is wrong or this is um it seems to be a a kind of a triggered event induced event but in the past they would have been inducing it just not realizing that they're inducing it because it would

have been maybe part of the grain maybe it was urgatized grain maybe they were consuming these these things which were natural. They didn't understand that these things would and when it's consumed with a particular grain, it would have a certain um you know it would have a certain eruption of consciousness. So yeah these are and when you look at the Quran was sunnah there is nothing I would argue that these verses of the Quran resonate with that but there is nothing to say this is not okay this is not of the Quran did exist these things existed by the way if Allah wanted to

make them haram he could have made them haram they they are part of nature they're not something which we've only discovered today this is things like DMT and these plants and whether It's uh mushrooms, psilocybin and these the these things have been around for millions of years and human beings have been consuming them. Animals have been consuming them.

So to say that well oh that Allah never knew about them or decided not to mention it. It doesn't make any sense and it is once again it is something which opens and expands not something which dumbs you down. So yeah that I wanted to share that and I hope it can be of some help to people. Obviously I do highlight I understand that these are issues of legality which I actually think is absurd that in this day and age people you know certain politicians um you know have a say on consciousness.

[laughter] No s you know these drugs they call them drugs. These enthogens are not addictive. They do not have a um a physiological dependency do not create physiological dependency. They have not been direct deaths ever linked to them. There have not been you know when you look at it they they've cured depression. They've cured addiction.

They've people who've experienced them have just become more loving caring people. um they they they've been very helpful for paleotative treatment in coming to terms with death. People lose a fear of death when they experience these things. Not in a bad way, not in a a daredevil way, but in a way that they embrace nature and they embrace death as a uh and you know some person sitting in in in I don't know parliament or sitting somewhere in a political seat has a say

on [laughter] it's absurd. And yet alcohol which causes deaths cuz people could say oh but if you took a psychoactive element well you you could do something. Let's us say that doesn't happen necessarily like that but let's say they said oh you could harm someone. Let's say you lost control and you attacked someone. That does not happen. But let's say but then there's laws in place for that.

What about with alcohol? With alcohol people drink alcohol and then there's laws. If a person drinks an alcohol and murders someone, in fact, there's so many fights that are created with alcohol. So many road traffic accidents that are a result of alcohol. It's yet people don't say, "Well, because it causes these things, they should be." But that's a separate argument and it's presented to Boris Johnson and whoever [laughter] takes his place that they really need to revisit these things that these are are are not really recreational stuff.

This is not fun. Although people do use it for fun as well, but this is really about connecting human beings to to God via a greater consciousness. But yeah, I wanted to share that because I don't feel enough people have actually said it. [laughter] Let's