Tripping with Allah: Islam, Drugs, and Writing

If Tripping With Allah is a road book, it's a road book in the tradition of 2001: A Space Odyssey, rather than On the Road. Knight, the "Hunter S. Thompson of Islamic literature," places his Muslim identity in conversation with his drinking of ayahuasca, a psychedelic tea used in Amazonian shamanism. Knight pursues an ecstatic, ayahuasca-fueled vision of Fatima, daughter of the Prophet Muhammad, while encountering questions of drugs, religion, modernity, and his own racialized and gendered self along the way. The journey is driven not only by Knight's search for meaning as an American Muslim, but also his treatment of writing as its own spiritual path. Between attempts at mystical drug visions, Tripping With Allah explores Knight's personal process of creativity and discovery.