Tripping with Allah

February 11, 2013
There are few, if any, Muslim writers like Knight (Why I Am A Five Percenter), who has been called the Hunter S. Thompson of Islamic literature. This memoir of his time with the spiritual group Santo Daime and ayahuasca, the psychedelic drug community members ingest to get closer to the divine, cements Knight's status as Islam's gonzo experimentalist. The book references 1980s wrestling and cartoons, graphic descriptions of Knight's eating disorder while he was living out of his car, and his sexual dysfunction before he ingests ayahuasca. When he finally takes the drug, it is a fascinating, odd trip, but one that transforms him for the better and seems to make him understand women with a humanity that eluded him during his misogynistic past. Knight has a gift for humor and honesty, though it's not always clear where, or if, his trip will end. Chapters about coffee, cannabis, and other drugs seem off-topic, but Knight's storytelling allows for a memorable arrival at the destination.

February 15, 2013
A personal quest into the intersection of Islam and mind-altering drugs. "I am a Muslim with plans with tripping with Allah, if Allah so wills, making me simultaneously a participant in two religions of high discomfort in our present America." A sentence like that, which comes early in the pages of Knight's (Osama Van Halen, 2009, etc.) memoir, isn't going to win its author points with Homeland Security or the Salafi mullahs. It is thoroughly revealing of Knight's program, however, which started off as a scholarly inquiry: He wanted to consider the effects of drug use on a modern Islamic practitioner--a "chemically enhanced Sufism," as a friend puts it--in much the same way an anthropologist might look at a drug-induced spirit journey among an Amazonian people. The author is cautiously academic in some respects; he worries, for example, that his discipline is painting with too wide a brush by applying the rubric "shamanism"--once specific to the peoples of northern Siberia--to such spirit journeys around the world. But Knight is also exuberant, sometimes to the point of channeling, directly or indirectly, the menacing drug dealer in the movie Withnail & I (1987): "I've put substances into my body that are so fuckin' condemned by society that I wouldn't even name them to you. So, from that experience, I'd say to go for it." Does Knight succeed in melding ayahuasca and Islam? It's most certainly worth reading this intelligent book to find out, for it has, beg pardon, a higher purpose than its surface gonzoism might suggest at first, with its smart meditations on consciousness and the passage of time. William James, suffice it to say, would probably be appalled at first, and then fascinated.

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March 15, 2013
Framed as a kind of memoir-as-road-novel, Knight's account is ostensibly about his journey to drinking ayahuasca, a psychedelic tea popular in South America. Yet, as with any good journey, the path includes numerous detours, and Knight's side trips add depth and complexity far beyond what one might expect from the story of some guy looking to trip out. Knight, an American Muslim, places the drinking of ayahuasca in the broader context of the Islamic tradition, musing on what the Qur'an says about drug use and offering a broad, historical examination of the faith. The book is really a series of short essays about Knight's experiences, held together by an overarching story line but without a strong linkage from chapter to chapter. Along the way, Knight self-consciously struggles with his narrative style, shifting from an academic discussion of Islamic history to casual drug conversations heavily peppered with peace. Yet, despite the shifting tone, Knight, who has been called the Hunter S. Thompson of Islamic literature, never loses his authenticity, whether he is discussing religion, sex, or drug use.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)