Cannabis and solitude made mystical junkies an ancestor of hippies
I watched a documentary on Netflix that left me stunned.
On Reddit and radical forums in America, I have often read sentences and phrases about the tragedy that struck the community of artists and activists after Nixon expanded the prohibition of cannabis.
The movie portrayed the criminalization of marijuana as a preservation of white dominance, an idea the hippie movement proposed. Additionally, it showed that cannabis can bring whites and blacks together through their shared interest in music and dancing.
During the film, a tape of a former U.S. President is played, in which he curses hippies in a manner almost reminiscent of Arab Islamists. He castigates Jews’ possession and distribution of drugs among youth, as these serious offenses can threaten American cultural values.
It is thought that Anglo-Saxon American culture has been influenced by the use of marijuana, In the past, Sufi circles of Arabs distributed a particular plant among their members who were commonly referred to as “commoners”.
In the present day, people of different political views in America adhere to strict beliefs similar to that of Muslim jurists and sultans from centuries ago.
In the past, Muslim leaders & rulers had stances that were as firm and rigid as current-day conservative Republicans, and perhaps even more.
Though centuries ago, hashish used in Ancient Persian and Egyptian societies had the same recreational & hallucinogenic effects as marijuana today.
The profound power of this drug is undoubtedly Middle Eastern, that is, Arab, Persian, Egyptian, or Khorasani in nature. This is in terms of how it has changed and impacted the social, political, and economic behavior of its users.
I came across a book named “MARIHUANA: The First Twelve Thousand Years” written by E.L. Abel, a Canadian researcher specializing in the area of alcoholism and addiction. This book really got my attention.
Even so, the information is precise and based on scientific integrity. This is the first time that I’ve come across a narrative about cannabis. Those who are exposed to this substance are left with cultural, creative, and ethical elements. Almost as strong as rock, psychedelic, and jazz bands from the 1960s and 1970s.
The first Arab hashish legend
In a similar fashion to the American hippie movement, the book tells a legendary, fabricated story about what the Sufi groups believed and shared.
In my view, Sufi’s high mood has gained more resilience and profundity. Due to its spiritual fundamentalism and its successful resistance to certain values and practices over the years. This remained unchanged until the advent of British colonialism.
The hippie movement, on the other hand, didn’t survive the earlier blows from the president.
The movement has ceased.
Not much is known about the Arabs who first discovered the remarkable properties of hashish. However, legends make up for this lack of information and fill the void of forgotten memories that were lost forever.
a story about Haider, the founder of the Sufi faith that circulated for thousands of years, with hashish in 1155AD.
According to the researcher, the legendary Haider stayed in a temple he built in the remote mountains of Persia for ten years. He lived as an ascetic monk there and only his disciples ever saw him in the serene and peaceful refuge.
On one of those steamy summer days, Haider, who felt down and depressed, decided to venture out from “his monastery” and explore the outdoors on his own. He also opened up his bedroom for people to come in for the first time.
I was captivated by the researcher’s description of the story. It gave me a lot of amusement and intrigue. When you, Haidar’s followers, shared the story of this wonderful plant with him, he asked Haidar to show them this strange plant so they too might experience its wonders.
It is said that in the last decade of his life, Haider relied solely on cannabis leaves as a source of sustenance. Upon his passing in 1221, instructions were given to his followers to lay cannabis leaves around his burial site.
The God of Hashish Truth
Earlier Sufi movement leaders were strict in their faith, but their successors and upcoming members were more daring and defiant of Islamic fundamentalism.
As most of the newly born believers came from the lower classes, the elites and authorities viewed them with suspicion and mistrust.
Sufis were not favored by Muslim clerics due to their philosophy. Sufism vision focuses on communicating with God directly without external agents, such as jurists, scholars, or even religious adages; as Abu Yazid Al-Bistami, a radical Sufi, said: “You took your knowledge from the dead, and we took our knowledge from The Living That Never Dies”.
A path that motivated the Sufis to achieve these spiritual insights was through intoxicating ecstasy. There are numerous ways to achieve this status, but the most common, which Haider used, is intoxication with drugs like hashish.
A Muslim critic (whose name was not given) wrote that consuming hashish is an act of worship.
Based on this perspective, Sufism was more than just a religion and an ideology. It embodied a counter-culture within Arab society, just as the hippies of the 1960s embodied a counter-culture within American society.
Hippies descend from mystics
Hippies and Sufi mystics share a lot of commonalities in various aspects, although there are some discrepancies as well.:
- Both Sufis and hippies chose to step away from conventional economic systems and instead focus on cultivating a communal atmosphere where they could collectively relish the same experiences, food, housing, and clothing.
The Sufis and the hippies both had long hair and chins, and the Sufis wore woolen clothes.
A third distinctive characteristic was that hippies and mystics did not seek financial gain from their visions.
According to the researcher, the dominant drug in both countercultures is cannabis. For hippies it is marijuana, for mystics it is hashish.
Mystics and hippies faced similar social stigmas and accusations since cannabis is the same substance; hashish calms the addict’s energy, diminishes his work ethic, and threatens the dominant culture.
In the past, hashish has been associated with madness and hallucinations, as it drives men to madness, weakens and destroys their minds.
The two movements are also very similar in their isolation, as they are both withdrawn psychologically and physically from the dominant culture, as well as in their isolation in comune, like the hippies, or in the mountains, like the Sufi junkies, to follow their own way, in a manner that demonstrates devotion to their spiritual leaders, far from the anger and aggression of the dominant cultural institutions. In spite of society’s view of their leaders as false prophets, they maintained a vision of themselves as heroes of a counterculture, not as lazy junkies.
Liberation of sexuality, family attitudes and prevailing sexual morality are common characteristics. According to the researcher, hippies were sexually bold and heterosexual, while the Sufis were more open to homosexuality. In their view, cannabis reduces the arousal of desire, which causes men to turn to men rather than women.
Both movements describe the cannabis plant in a similar way, despite the time gap of over a thousand years between them.
The first mystical junkies and hippies defended the cannabis plant, claiming it gave them intractable visions, felt new and different meanings for experiences that seemed trivial to society, made them feel that they were the smartest, had the deepest understanding, and saw beautiful colors and designs that seemed to be popular among them, as well as doubling their pleasure in listening to music and relieving anxiety.
According to the book, the main difference between the Sufis and the hippies is their humble social backgrounds, whereas the hippies were from middle-class American families, educated, cultured, and respected.
As for the hippies, alcohol was within their reach, and they had no religious beliefs about alcohol or marijuana. Wine was expensive for the early junkies, but hashish was affordable, and there was no clear Qur’anic text describing it.
Cannabis was tried to be eradicated by the Arabs, but failed to do so since it adversely affected the work culture and the ethics of Islamic scholars.
In the researcher’s view, hashish is still a mystical way to escape institutional culture.
Is he right?
This article is based on a post I wrote in Arabic on the Raseef22 website, entitled: Marijuana Myths of the Early Sufis
