Perspectives on Drug Addiction in Islamic History and Theology

How does Islam view substance addiction? What happens to the soul of the person suffering from addictive disorder? What happens to his relationship with God? These are some of the questions that this article tries to answer. Three models on drug addiction from an Islamic theological perspective will be explored here. Two of them are preventative models based on an understanding of society rooted in shame-culture, while the third model, called Millati Islami, practiced in the USA, is founded on the Islamic understanding of tawba (repentance). Furthermore, drugs and addiction in scripture, as well as medieval Muslims society’s attitude towards them are explored. As a whole, the models discussed in the article demonstrate that Islamic theology possesses the intellectual and theoretical tools to develop fully-fledged theological models of addiction, and a suggestion to explore one model is made in the conclusion.