Comment by nashashmi | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nashashmi | Hacker News Reader

No Islamic leader in their right mind would try taking magic mushrooms or any forms of intoxication. That is a red line. So I seriously doubt the experience of the person who went in and took it. Which means the question remains unanswered: how would a person of the Islamic faith describe the experience obtained from magic mushrooms?

By the words of the Quran, the response is

  They ask you about wine and gambling. Say, “In both there is great sin, 
  and some benefits for people. And their sin is greater than their benefit.”
  And they ask you as to what they should spend. Say, “The surplus”. This is 
  how Allah makes His verses clear to you, so that you may ponder.

Benefits are acknowledged, but it emphasizes the sin (likely meaning a curse aka perennial harm) is greater.

My protest to the context of HN, this study furthers the idea that God/religion/belief is a mystical hallucinated idea (and does not belong any greater in rational belief than does the experience of magic mushrooms). But such equivalencies being drawn here would be hasty and ignorant and a logical fallacy. First, if Person A believes in X and Person B believes in Y and goes through an experience causing Person B to also believe in X and calls Y a similarly relevant belief, does not make Person A and Person B similar, nor does it make X and Y similar. It just means the experience is mind altering. Second, these studies observe the outcomes, describes the outcomes, and hypothesizes the empirical causes, but in the case of this study it is observing hallucinations in believers of faith and finding similarities in reasoning to their preconcieved beliefs, causing it to claim that hallucination is equal to belief.

Lot of words and blind beliefs.

0 experiential knowledge.

It’s worth clarifying a few points about Islamic teachings and history regarding intoxicants.

First, the Quran does not categorically declare all intoxicants haram (forbidden) in the legalistic sense often assumed. The verse commonly cited (2:219) does not prohibit wine or similar substances outright — it acknowledges both the harm and potential benefit:

> "They ask you about wine and gambling. Say, 'In them is great sin and [yet] some benefit for people. But their sin is greater than their benefit...'"

This is moral guidance urging caution and reflection — not a blanket prohibition. The prohibition as we know it today comes from later jurisprudence built atop evolving interpretations, often informed by societal conditions, not an explicit Quranic ruling alone.

Second, many prominent Islamic thinkers in classical times engaged deeply with altered states and substances — sometimes even celebratory of them. Avicenna (Ibn Sina), arguably the greatest polymath of the Islamic Golden Age, wrote on the medical and philosophical effects of opium and other psychoactives. Other thinkers — like al-Ghazali, Suhrawardi, and Sufi poets such as Rumi and Hafiz — explored the boundaries between mystical experience, reason, and sensory perception. In some cases, this included symbolic or actual engagement with intoxicants to describe the ecstasy of divine union.

The idea that “no Islamic leader in their right mind” would ever touch such substances overlooks both historical nuance and the breadth of Islamic thought — from orthodox jurists to radical mystics. The same diversity of perspective exists today.

If you are interested in learning more about the topic there is a great book about it : "Tripping with Allah: Islam, Drugs, and Writing Book by Michael Muhammad Knight"

Finally, equating religious belief with hallucination because both may involve altered cognitive states is philosophically flimsy. That a mushroom trip can lead someone to perceive “God” doesn’t invalidate faith any more than a dream invalidates memory. Experiences can reinforce prior belief without reducing them to mere neurochemistry. Correlation is not causation — and even if it were, that would not necessarily diminish the meaning of the experience.

Yes, agreed on all fronts. I am familiar with Knight as well. The literal word is intoxicants, not wine. And different substances were interpreted as intoxicants later. But after being declared intoxicants, Islamic leaders would not go near it. Avicenna was a Muslim researcher and philosopher, and not religiously minded. Sufis experimented with various elements of mysticism and some experimented with substances even to this day. But there explorations were attempts to find God and perhaps understand intoxicants’ effects on the brain. I put them under the researchers’ category.

"But after being declared intoxicants, Islamic leaders would not go near it"

Absolutely false. Until today the Islamic ( Arabic) "elite" is very fond of fancy wines and alcohol.

The prohibition is only for the common street folk.

I believe you are talking about religious observances. The elites may or may not be observant. But they are also not clergy/“Islamic leaders”.

Mushrooms are not intoxicating.

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