Ayatollah Muhammad-Sadiq Rohani's 2014 fatwa
Translation
Question:
There is said to be a rooster whose legs stand on the seventh earth, whose neck is fixed beneath the Throne, and whose wings beat in the air; it flaps and cries out, “Subbūḥ, Quddūs (All-Holy, All-Pure).”
And there is said to be a city called Jāliqā that has twelve thousand gates of gold; between each gate and the next is a parasang, and at every one of its gates are a thousand thousand horsemen spurring their mounts and brandishing swords and weapons, awaiting the rise of the Qāʾim (peace be upon him)!
Is not all this among the “religious reports” which we take to be religious knowledge—whereas, at best, they are myths or forms of enchantment and swimming in (Oriental) fantasy?
A researcher—specialist in Shiʿi studies (head of the Department of Islamic Studies at the Sorbonne, France)—has shown that early Shiʿism, in its first stage and in the narrative sources now in our hands (al-Ṣaffār al-Qummī and Muḥammad b. Yaʿqūb al-Kulaynī), spoke a mythic language before it was influenced by Muʿtazilī thought in the Būyid age.
He even carried out a tabular study indicating a change in the kinds of ḥadīths cited in the books, from the standpoint of what is central, between the period before the Būyids (al-Ṣaffār, al-Kulaynī, al-Ṣadūq) and the period after al-Sayyid al-Murtaḍā ʿAlam al-Hudā and al-Shaykh al-Ṭūsī—and he applied these observations to all of them.
But you know this topic better than we do, so there is no need to go into detail about it.
Conclusion:
The connection between what we have mentioned and our research topic—plants that awaken perception—is that experience and science have shown these plants carry out a purification of the gates of perception, which can open a new insight that helps in understanding original religious vision. This is not a defect; rather, after trying them some describe the state as a “return.”
For that reason, we have found it necessary to know what the proper religious-legal position on these plants is.
We apologize again for the length of the letter; yet we also found it hard to be brief, for we have condensed a great deal. We stand ready to supply you with further details and Arabic sources, although—unfortunately—few reliable Arabic academic sources exist that can be relied on in books, whereas on the internet there is a great deal of research, but in English. We can provide translations of studies issued by leading specialists in this field.
We repeat, our noble master, that what we are asking from you is an answer on the jurisprudential-legal plane, and an answer on the intellectual-cultural plane.
We thank you for your patience in reading this letter, for your valuable efforts, and for your participation in defending the heritage of the People of the House—the Ark of Salvation and the eye of life.
We ask for your prayers for success in the service of the religion.
— Nabīl, Beirut
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In His Name, Glorified are His Names
As we have previously answered you: the religious ruling concerning such plants is permissibility (ḥilliyya), for the default principle with plants—as with all other things for which there is no specific revealed text—is permissibility. One cannot judge something to be forbidden unless there is an explicit text to that effect, or unless it clearly falls under the application of a general prohibition.
The ruling that hashish (for example) is forbidden is due to the fact that it leads to loss of intellect or to stupefaction through a state of intoxication.
As for what has been cited from certain reports on this topic, when examined all of them have weak chains and are not to be considered authentic.
Signature: Ayatollah Muhammad-Sadiq Rohani
