Part I: The Biological and Theological Foundations
Section 1: The Wood-Wide Web as Ontological Model: Principles of Mycelial Networks
To propose a new ontological model for social theory, one must first establish the foundational principles of the source domain with rigor and clarity. In this case, the source is the mycelial network, the vast, subterranean fungal architecture that underpins much of the planet’s terrestrial life. Often referred to as the “Wood-Wide Web,” these networks are not merely a passive substrate but dynamic, intelligent systems whose operational principles offer a potent alternative to the hierarchical, centralized and mechanistic models that dominate modern political and social thought. This section provides a detailed biological exposition of these networks, focusing on three core principles: decentralized intelligence, symbiotic economy and network resilience that will serve as the basis for the analogical construction of the Mycelial Ummah.
1.1 Decentralized Intelligence and Information Processing
Mycelial networks exemplify a form of distributed, non-hierarchical intelligence that emerges from the collective action of simple, interconnected components. This intelligence is not located in a central processing unit but is a property of the network itself, arising from its unique structure and mode of growth.
The network is constructed from the bottom up. It comprises a vast web of individual filaments called hyphae, each of which grows by extending its tip through a process of highly localized polar secretion. This growth is an exploratory, adaptive process, driven by internal turgor pressure and the intricate mechanics of the cytoskeleton. Rather than finding food and ingesting it, the fungus puts its “body inside its food,” extending its hyphal network into new resource patches in a continuous process of environmental exploration and embodiment. This emergent method of construction, lacking any central blueprint or command, is the first principle of its decentralized nature.
Once established, this network functions as a sophisticated information-processing system, often compared to a “neurological network of nature”. It is a sensitive membrane, constantly aware of and responsive to environmental stimuli, capable of transmitting signals across vast distances to connect disparate organisms like trees, even of different species. This subterranean communication web can transfer information about nutrient availability, water sources and even pathogenic threats, allowing the interconnected plant community to mount coordinated responses. This information processing is not centralized; there is no “brain” of the forest. Instead, it is a distributed cognitive function, where each part of the network contributes to the collective awareness and decision-making of the whole. This model of distributed cognition is so powerful that it has inspired new visions for a more ethical and symbiotic form of Artificial Intelligence (AI), one that functions as an “ecosystem participant” rather than a “dystopian overseer,” fostering harmonization instead of hierarchy. This parallel highlights the mycelial network’s profound potential as a model for non-coercive, distributed intelligence.
1.2 Symbiotic Economies: The Dynamics of Resource Exchange
The mycelial network is the backbone of a complex subterranean economy. This economy is built on a foundational symbiosis, primarily through what are known as Common Mycorrhizal Networks (CMNs), where arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) form symbiotic associations with the roots of most terrestrial plants. The fundamental transaction is an exchange of resources: plants, through photosynthesis, provide the fungi with carbon and in return, the fungi, with their vast and intricate hyphal networks, forage the soil for and provide the plants with essential mineral nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen, often from sources inaccessible to the plant roots themselves. This symbiotic exchange is not a minor ecological curiosity; it is a critical driver of plant community structure and ecosystem productivity and a vital asset for sustainable agriculture.
However, a deeper examination of this economy reveals that it is far from a simple, harmonious utopia of equal exchange. The “terms of trade” within a CMN are complex, dynamic and often highly asymmetrical. Research has shown that the balance of this biological market can be skewed significantly depending on the specific plant and fungal species involved. In one documented case, flax plants were found to invest very little carbon into the network yet gained up to 94% of the nitrogen and phosphorus provided by the CMN, effectively “cheating” their neighboring sorghum plants, which invested massive amounts of carbon for very little return.1 This demonstrates that the network can facilitate not only cooperation but also exploitation and competition.
The regulation of this resource flow is not governed by a central authority or a simple principle of fairness. Instead, it is determined by a confluence of factors, including the functional diversity of the species involved, competition for surplus resources and the “sink strength” of individual plants and their capacity to draw down nutrients. While there is evidence for a “market theory” where the network may preferentially reward plants that provide more carbon, this is not a universal law. The CMN functions as a dynamic marketplace where trades can be weakly reciprocal, influenced by transient needs and the efficiency of different symbiotic interfaces. This “messiness” is a crucial aspect of the model. Any social theory built upon this analogy must abandon a naive vision of pure, selfless harmony and instead incorporate robust mechanisms for navigating and managing internal competition, free-riding and the emergence of unequal power dynamics. A social model inspired by mycelial networks would not be a conflict-free utopia, but rather a resilient system capable of processing and balancing internal conflicts and disparities, making it far more realistic and applicable to the complexities of human society.
1.3 Network Resilience and Adaptive Response
A third foundational principle of the mycelial network is its profound resilience, its capacity to withstand, adapt to and recover from environmental stresses and physical damage. This resilience is not an abstract quality but an emergent property of its decentralized and interconnected structure, contributing directly to the stability and resource management of the entire ecosystem.
The network’s very architecture is a source of its strength. Because it is a distributed web of interconnected hyphae, the loss of any single node or pathway does not necessarily lead to systemic collapse. The network can reroute resources and information around damaged areas, maintaining overall function in a way that a centralized system with a single point of failure cannot. This structural redundancy allows it to cope with patchy, ephemeral resources, competition, predation and damage in a manner fundamentally different from multicellular plants or animals. This resilience is evident in its ability to help host plants withstand environmental stresses such as drought and disease.
However, this resilience is not absolute. The network’s health is intrinsically linked to the health of its surrounding environment. Large-scale, systemic threats can overwhelm its adaptive capacity. Activities such as agricultural tillage, construction and deforestation physically destroy the network. The overuse of chemical fertilizers can render the symbiotic exchange obsolete, while fungicides can directly kill the fungi. Pollution from heavy metals and acid rain can alter soil chemistry, making it inhospitable. Furthermore, indirect threats like climate change, habitat loss and the introduction of invasive species can disrupt the delicate balance of the ecosystem upon which the network depends.
This reveals a critical dimension of mycelial resilience: it is relational, not intrinsic. The network’s ability to thrive is inseparable from the well-being of its symbiotic partners and the stability of the wider ecosystem. This has profound implications for any social theory derived from it. It suggests that a “Mycelial Ummah” could not be conceived as a closed, self-sufficient entity, isolated from the world. Its internal health and resilience would be directly dependent on its relationship with the broader ecological and political environment. This principle inherently pushes the model towards an eco-theological and decolonial framework, where the community’s survival is contingent upon establishing just and sustainable relationships with the non-human world and with other human communities, rather than seeking dominance or isolation. At the cellular level, this adaptability is even more granular, with fungi demonstrating complex reprogramming at transcriptional and metabolomic levels to evade threats like oxidative stress, showcasing a deep, inherent plasticity.
Section 2: Re-examining the Ummah: From Imperial Polity to Post-Nationalist Community
Having established the biological principles of the mycelial network, the second pillar of the analogy, the concept of the Islamic Ummah, must be similarly deconstructed and examined. The term Ummah is often used monolithically, but its meaning has evolved dramatically from its Qur’anic origins to its current predicament within the framework of the modern nation-
state. This section charts that evolution, arguing that the contemporary nation-state model represents a profound crisis and a deviation from the Ummah‘s original potential, thereby creating the intellectual and political necessity for a new ontological model.
2.1 The Prophetic and Quranic Ideal
The emergence of the Ummah in 7th-century Arabia was a revolutionary social and political event. It proposed a form of community founded not on the prevailing principle of tribal kinship (qawm) or shared ancestry and geography (sha’b), but on the basis of shared faith and a common divine purpose. The Qur’an uses the term Ummah to denote a community of believers bound together in the worship of God and the advancement of a moral vision. This was a radical departure from the blood-based loyalties that had defined Arab society.
The most potent historical example of this ideal is the polity established in Medina following the Prophet Muhammad’s migration. The Constitution of Medina, a document established between the Prophet and the various tribal leaders of the city, created a single, unified community an Ummah that, in its initial formulation, explicitly included non-Muslim groups such as the Jewish tribes. Membership was based on a pact of mutual defense and political co-existence, making it a supra-tribal and, at its inception, a multi-religious political entity. This early model demonstrates that the foundational concept of the Ummah was not necessarily exclusionary but was based on a shared commitment to justice and security, transcending narrow ethnic or even religious lines within a covenanted political space.
The Qur’an further defines the normative ethical framework of this ideal community. It is described as the “best community (khayra ummah) raised up for humanity,” characterized by its commitment to “enjoining what is right (ma’rūf) and forbidding what is wrong (munkar)” (Qur’an 3:110). It is also designated as an ummah wasat, a “justly balanced” or “moderate” community (Qur’an 2:143), tasked with being a witness over other nations. This moderation, combined with the principles of taqwa (God-consciousness, piety) and naseeha (mutual advice and sincere counsel), establishes a vision of a community built on shared moral responsibility, accountability, and collective self-correction.
2.2 The Imperial Legacy and the Modernist Predicament
The prophetic ideal of the Ummah as a faith-based community was soon transformed by the realities of history. Following the early period of the “Rightly-Guided Caliphs,” the Ummah evolved into a series of vast, centralized empires, from the Umayyads to the Abbasids and finally the Ottomans. During this long imperial phase, the concept of the Ummah became increasingly conflated with the structures of a political state (dawla), often ruled by hereditary dynasties where power was maintained through military force rather than the ideal of communal consultation. This created a persistent tension between the theological ideal of a unified, global community of faith and the political reality of an imperial state with its own bureaucratic and military logic.
This imperial model entered a terminal crisis with the rise of European colonialism. The gradual dismemberment and eventual collapse of the Ottoman Caliphate after World War I shattered the last symbol of pan-Islamic political unity. In its place, the European colonial powers imposed the Westphalian nation-state model, carving the Muslim world into a series of competing, often artificially bordered, political entities. This fragmentation provoked a profound intellectual and political response from Muslim thinkers. Reformists like Jamal al Din al-Afghani called for pan-Islamic solidarity to resist colonial domination, while modernists like Muhammad Iqbal urged the Ummah to emerge from its stagnation by embracing a dynamic reinterpretation of Islamic tradition in dialogue with modern science, seeking to restore its lost dignity and vitality.
The most trenchant critique of this situation comes from the contemporary scholar Wael Hallaq. Hallaq argues that the crisis is not merely political but metaphysical. The modern state, he contends, is not a neutral vessel into which “Islam” can be poured. It is an “anthropocentric entity” that claims absolute sovereignty for itself, monopolizes the right to legislate and deploy vast bureaucratic and cultural power to fashion its citizens into loyal subjects.2 This project is fundamentally and irreconcilably at odds with the Islamic worldview, in which sovereignty belongs to God alone and law (the Shari’ah) is a divinely revealed moral paradigm that stands above any ruler. For Hallaq, therefore, the very idea of an “Islamic State” is a contradiction in terms, an “impossible” project doomed to failure because it attempts to fuse two incompatible ontologies.
Hallaq’s “impossibility” thesis should not be seen as a counsel of despair, but as a profound intellectual clearing of the ground. It explains the persistent failures and crises of 20th and 21st-century Islamist political projects that have attempted to capture and work within the nation-state framework. Their shortcomings are not necessarily due to a flaw in Islamic principles, but to the inherent inadequacy of the modern state as a vehicle for their realization.
This creates an urgent intellectual and political vacuum. If the state is not the answer, then what is? It is precisely this vacuum that necessitates the search for alternative, non-state, post-nationalist models of social and political organization. The Mycelial Ummah is proposed as a direct response to the generative crisis that Hallaq so powerfully identifies.
2.3 Contemporary Manifestations: The Digital and Diasporic Ummah
Even as the nation-state model persists, new forms of the Ummah are already emerging, driven by technology and the realities of global migration. These contemporary manifestations provide crucial evidence of a widespread, organic desire for a post-nationalist form of community and offer precursors to the Mycelial Ummah model.
The most visible of these is the “digital Ummah.” The internet and social media have fostered a global, decentralized network of connection, interaction and solidarity among Muslims, particularly the youth demographic often labeled “Generation M.” This online space transcends geographical and political borders, allowing for the formation of a shared identity built on common values and real-time communication. It has become a vibrant sphere for cultural production, from fashion blogs to social commentary and a democratized platform for religious learning, connecting lay Muslims directly with scholars. More ambitious projects, like the “Ummah Network,” explicitly seek to leverage decentralized technologies such as blockchain to build a sovereign digital society, complete with its own identity systems, communication channels, knowledge repositories and even economic infrastructure.
Alongside the digital, diasporic solidarity networks offer another powerful model of resilient, non-state community. Grassroots organizations, such as the Palestine Diaspora Movement (PDM), function as highly resilient, decentralized networks of activism and mutual support. Rooted in a shared identity and a common cause, these movements operate transnationally to mobilize support, challenge dominant narratives and maintain a sense of community in the face of displacement and oppression. Such networks often operate on a conceptual distinction between “homeland” (a specific, often inaccessible, geography) and “heartland” (a shared sense of religious and cultural solidarity that transcends borders), providing a powerful model for connection that is not contingent on statehood.
These developments are significant. They demonstrate that the desire for a post-nationalist Ummah is not merely a theoretical abstraction but a lived reality being actively constructed through modern tools and social formations. However, these forms also have inherent limitations. The digital Ummah, for all its connective power, is ultimately disembodied and vulnerable to the very real problems of misinformation and the control of its underlying physical and corporate infrastructure. It fosters connection but struggles to create the deep, material and ecological grounding of a physical community. The Mycelial Ummah model learns directly from these precursors. It seeks to adopt the decentralized, networked structure of the digital and diasporic Ummah but to re-embed it within a physical, ecological and embodied ethical reality. It offers a path to being simultaneously networked and rooted, globally connected and locally grounded, thus addressing the primary weakness of purely virtual or purely political forms of community.
Part II: Mapping the Mycelial Ummah
This part undertakes the core constructive work of the report, systematically mapping the biological principles of mycelial networks onto reconstituted Islamic concepts. By drawing analogical connections between these two complex systems, a coherent ontological model of the “Mycelial Ummah” will be built, piece by piece. This is not an exercise in finding simple one-to-one equivalents, but in using the logic of one system to re-illuminate and re-imagine the potential of the other. The model will be developed across three key domains of social organization: governance (shūrā), economy (zakāt) and metaphysics (Tawḥīd).
Section 3: Governance as Consultation: Shūrā and Decentralized Intelligence
The first mapping connects the mycelial principle of decentralized intelligence with the Islamic principle of shūrā (consultation), re-imagining governance as a dynamic, emergent network process rather than a static, centralized institution.
3.1 From Majlis to Network: Re-interpreting Shūrā
The Quranic injunction for believers to “conduct their affairs by mutual consultation (shūrā) among themselves” (Quran 42:38) is a cornerstone of Islamic political thought. Historically, this principle has most often been institutionalized in the form of a majlis al-shura, or consultative council. While this serves as a crucial check on autocratic rule by requiring a leader to seek advice, the majlis model often remains a centralized, formal body that advises a singular locus of power: the caliph, sultan, or amir. It is a system of consultation with power, but not necessarily a system where power itself is fully distributed.
Mapping this concept onto a mycelial network suggests a radical decentralization and transformation of shūrā. In a mycelial system, intelligence and decision-making are not concentrated in a council of elder fungi but are distributed throughout the entire network. Information flows, resources are assessed and responses are formulated through the interactions of countless individual hyphal tips. A “Mycelial Shūrā” would therefore not be a specific institution or a periodic event, but a continuous, distributed process of information sharing, deliberation, and decision-making that permeates the entire social fabric. Governance would become an emergent function of the community’s myriad interactions, much like the forest’s collective intelligence emerges from the mycelial web. It would be an ongoing state of being, a fundamental property of the network itself, rather than the prerogative of a designated class of rulers or representatives.
This model offers a path beyond the intractable debate in Islamic political thought between Western-style democracy (where sovereignty resides in the people) and traditionalist theocracy (where sovereignty is vested in a ruler who implements God’s law). The modern state’s claim to absolute, anthropocentric sovereignty is, as Wael Hallaq argues, metaphysically incompatible with the Islamic principle of God’s ultimate sovereignty.2 At the same time, many traditionalist models are criticized for being autocratic, rejecting popular participation in the name of divine law. The Mycelial Shūrā model dissolves this dichotomy by relocating sovereignty. In this framework, sovereignty does not reside in a single ruler, nor in the abstract will of the people expressed through a vote. Rather, sovereignty is an emergent property of the entire community-network as it operates within the ethical boundaries and objectives of the Shari’ah (maqāṣid al-sharīʿah). The network as a whole, through its distributed consultative processes, seeks to discern and enact the good, guided by divine principles. It is a system of governance where the process (decentralized consultation) and the purpose (enacting a moral framework) are fused, creating a polity that is neither a secular democracy nor a clerical autocracy.
3.2 Collective Ijtihād as Emergent Wisdom
The process of ijtihād the exertion of intellectual effort by a qualified jurist (mujtahid) to derive legal rulings on matters not explicitly covered by the Quran and Sunnah is the primary mechanism for the adaptation and evolution of Islamic law. However, the increasing complexity of modern life, with its novel challenges in fields like bioethics, digital finance and environmental science, has rendered individual ijtihād insufficient.3 This has led to a growing consensus on the need for ijtihād jamā’ī, or collective ijtihād, typically practiced within formal institutions like international fiqh academies where scholars with diverse expertise can collaborate.
The Mycelial Ummah model takes this concept a step further. It envisions collective ijtihād not merely as a meeting of scholars in a council room, but as the entire network’s innate capacity for problem-solving. This is directly analogous to the way a mycelial network or a slime mold can, through the parallel processing of its distributed nodes, solve complex optimization problems, such as finding the most efficient path between multiple food sources. In this model, the “nodes” of the intellectual network are not just legal scholars, but also scientists, ethicists, artisans, farmers and community members with localized knowledge. Sound and contextually relevant solutions to complex problems would emerge from the dynamic interaction of this diverse web of expertise, mirroring how a fungus processes a vast array of environmental data to produce an intelligent, adaptive response. This approach moves beyond the need for a permanent, formal council, suggesting instead a more fluid, problem oriented and radically inclusive assembly of knowledge.
3.3 Comparative Models: DAOs, Sufi Orders, and Anarchist Federations
The concept of a Mycelial Shūrā finds resonance and contrast in several other decentralized organizational models, both ancient and modern.
Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) offer a compelling technological parallel. DAOs are member-owned communities with no centralized leadership, governed by rules encoded in software (smart contracts) and decisions made through token-based voting on a transparent, public blockchain. Their principles of decentralization, collective decision-making and transparency have led some to explicitly connect them to Islamic concepts like shūrā, waqf (charitable endowment) and the borderless Ummah.
However, DAOs are not without significant flaws. They often suffer from low voter participation and the principle of “one token, one vote” can lead to a new form of plutocracy, where power concentrates in the hands of the wealthiest token-holders. Critically, DAOs are often criticized as being amoral “technological solutions to social problems,” where the governing code is unable to compel ethical behavior in the real world. This comparison highlights a crucial design requirement for the Mycelial Ummah. While a DAO runs on a protocol of code, the Mycelial Ummah must run on a protocol of shared ethics. The foundational principle of niyyah (sincere intention) the internal resolve to perform an action for the sake of God becomes the governing protocol. A collective niyyah to seek justice and the common good provides the trust, purpose and moral compass that code alone cannot supply. It is this ethical layer that would regulate the network and prevent the “cheating” and purely self-interested competition seen in biological systems from fracturing the social fabric.
Sufi Orders provide a rich historical precedent for decentralized, non-state social organization within Islam. For centuries, Sufi tariqas (orders) functioned as resilient, transnational networks for spiritual development, social cohesion and even proselytization. Their structure was fundamentally decentralized, built upon a voluntary and intimate master-pupil relationship that allowed for the flexible integration of local customs and practices. Authority within these networks was not based on coercion but on mutual acknowledgment and earned spiritual respect. In the contemporary era, the rise of “Digital Sufism” has further decentralized these networks, creating more horizontal forms of organization and moving away from traditional top-down hierarchies.
Section 4: Economy as Symbiosis: Zakāt and Reciprocal Resource Flow
The second mapping translates the mycelial principle of symbiotic resource exchange onto the Islamic economic principle of zakāt, re-conceptualizing it not as a simple act of charity but as a dynamic, life-sustaining circulatory system essential for the health of the entire community.
4.1 Zakāt as Nutrient Cycling, Not Charity
Zakāt, an obligatory annual levy of (typically) 2.5% on surplus wealth, is one of the five pillars of Islam. Its primary function is the redistribution of wealth from those who have it to specific categories of recipients, including the poor and needy. It is a divinely mandated mechanism designed to alleviate poverty, reduce vast inequalities, purify the wealth of the giver and bridge the gap between the rich and poor. While often translated as “alms” or “charity,” its obligatory nature makes it more akin to a sacred social tax, a right of the poor upon the wealth of the rich.
In the mycelial model, zakāt is analogous to the constant, life-sustaining flow of carbon and nutrients through the Common Mycorrhizal Network. It ceases to be seen as a one-way transfer from a “giver” to a “receiver” and becomes a vital circulatory system that ensures the health, productivity and resilience of the entire ecosystem, the Ummah. In a forest, mature, sun-rich trees (“the wealthy”) are symbiotically linked to shaded seedlings (“the poor”). The flow of carbon from the large trees to the seedlings is not an act of optional benevolence; it is a fundamental process that ensures the regeneration and long-term survival of the forest as a whole. The health of the strongest nodes is inextricably linked to the well-being of the weakest. Similarly, a Mycelial Zakāt is understood as the community’s metabolic process, circulating resources to where they are most needed to ensure that no part of the collective body withers, thereby strengthening the entire social organism.
4.2 From Consumptive to Productive Redistribution
The traditional application of zakāt has often focused on “consumptive” distribution, providing funds for immediate needs like food, clothing, and shelter. While essential for immediate relief, this approach can create a cycle of dependency. In response, there has been a modern emphasis on “productive zakāt,” a concept with roots in classical Islamic thought, where scholars like Imam al-Ghazali discussed giving in a way that makes the recipient permanently self-sufficient. This model uses zakāt funds for income-generating and capacity-building projects, such as providing seed capital for small businesses, purchasing tools for artisans, or funding vocational training.4
However, the validity of this approach is strictly conditional. For any form of zakāt distribution to be legitimate, the recipient must directly qualify under one of the eight specific categories of beneficiaries outlined in Islamic law (fiqh). This principle has become a point of significant contention, as some modern institutions, particularly in the West, have been criticized for expanding the definition of categories like fī sabīl Allah (“for the cause of Allah”) to justify funding general “good causes,” administrative overhead, or lobbying efforts.5 Such indirect applications are often considered invalid by traditional jurisprudence, which historically limited the fī sabīl Allah category almost exclusively to supporting volunteer warriors and required a direct transfer of wealth to eligible individuals, not institutions.
When applied correctly, that is, by directly empowering individuals who fall within the recognized categories, this productive model aligns perfectly with the logic of the mycelial network. The network does not just give a seedling a one-off “meal” of carbon; it invests nutrients and carbon to help that seedling establish itself, grow its own leaves, and eventually become a productive, photosynthesizing member of the community that can contribute its own carbon back into the network. Productive zakāt operates on the same principle of investment for mutual uplift. The goal is not merely to sustain the poor but to empower them to become self-sufficient, dignified, and productive members of the community who may, in time, become zakāt contributors themselves, thus strengthening the entire economic network and increasing its overall resilience and abundance.
4.3 Acknowledging Asymmetry and the Role of Niyyah
The analogy with mycelial biology provides a crucial dose of realism, preventing the economic model from lapsing into utopianism. As established, biological networks are not perfectly equitable systems; they are characterized by competition and highly asymmetrical exchanges, where some “nodes” may contribute far more than others and some may even “cheat” the system. A Mycelial Ummah model must therefore be designed with the expectation that human contributions and needs will be similarly imbalanced and that the system must be robust enough to handle these disparities without collapsing.
Here, the Islamic ethical framework provides a crucial regulatory mechanism that is absent in the purely biological system. While the biological network is regulated by amoral forces like “sink strength” and competition , the Mycelial Ummah’s economic system is ultimately regulated by the principle of niyyah (sincere intention). In Islam, the payment of zakāt is not merely a financial transaction; it is a profound act of worship (‘ibādah), the intention of which is to purify one’s soul and wealth and to seek the pleasure of God. This spiritual-ethical dimension provides the foundational trust and moral imperative that prevents the system from descending into a zero-sum game of pure, self-interested competition. It ensures that even within an asymmetrical system, the overarching collective intention is mutual support, care and uplift, not exploitation. Niyyah transforms the economic network from a mere system of resource allocation into a moral community, providing the cohesive force that biology alone cannot guarantee.
Section 5: Being as Interbeing: Tawḥīd and Network Resilience
The third and most profound layer of the analogy connects the network’s emergent property of resilience to the core Islamic theological principle of Tawḥīd the absolute Oneness of God.
This section argues that the interconnectedness observed in the mycelial web is a physical manifestation of a deeper metaphysical reality and that a community’s strength and resilience are ultimately derived from its embodiment of this principle of unity in diversity.
5.1 Wahdat al-Wujūd as Ecological Reality
Within the rich intellectual tradition of Sufism, the doctrine of wahdat al-wujūd, or the “Unity of Being,” offers a sophisticated metaphysical framework for understanding reality. Most famously articulated by the 13th-century Andalusian mystic Ibn Arabi, this doctrine posits that all of existence (wujūd) is, in its essence, a single, unique reality. The multiplicity of forms we perceive in the cosmos the trees, the stars, the animals and human beings are not separate, independent entities but are rather so many self-disclosures (tajalliyāt) of the one Real (al Ḥaqq), which is God. Every created thing is thus simultaneously “He and not He” (howa/lā howa), a finite, delimited reflection of the infinite, non-delimited Divine Being. This is not a crude pantheism that simply equates God with the material world, but a nuanced understanding of unity in diversity, where the One manifests as the many without compromising Its absolute transcendence.
The Mycelial Ummah model proposes that this profound metaphysical concept can be understood as a tangible, ecological truth. The mycelial network, which physically connects a multitude of seemingly separate organisms into a single, interdependent functional whole, serves as a powerful physical metaphor for wahdat al-wujūd. The forest is not just a collection of individual trees; it is an interconnected superorganism, a living testament to the principle that the health of each part is inseparable from the health of the whole. The resilience of this ecosystem and its ability to withstand drought, disease and damage is a direct consequence of this deep, lived interconnectedness. In this light, the Islamic principle of Tawḥīd is not merely an abstract creed to be affirmed, but a cosmological reality to be embodied. A Mycelial Ummah would be a community that structures itself upon this principle, recognizing that to harm one member or one part of the surrounding creation is, in a very real sense, to harm oneself and the entire collective.
This theological framing provides the ultimate justification for a decentralized social order. The very concept of Tawḥīd, as argued by contemporary Muslim anarchists, necessitates the rejection of all earthly claims to absolute sovereignty, particularly that of the modern state, which is seen as a form of idolatry (shirk). If God is the sole sovereign, then all human beings and institutions are rendered equal in relation to that single, transcendent center. In this sense, Tawḥīd is not a centralizing political principle; it is the very principle that enables radical political decentralization by leveling all terrestrial claims to ultimate authority. Without such a transcendent organizing principle, human systems, even decentralized ones like DAOs, tend to re-create hierarchies and centers of power based on wealth or influence. Tawḥīd provides the metaphysical foundation for a truly horizontal and resilient social network.
5.2 Embodied Piety and Communal Strength
This principle of interconnectedness has profound implications for understanding individual agency and its relationship to the collective. Liberal political thought tends to define agency primarily as the assertion of individual autonomy and freedom, often expressed as resistance against external norms or structures of power. The work of anthropologist Saba Mahmood powerfully challenges this narrow conception. Through her ethnographic study of the women’s piety movement in Cairo, Mahmood demonstrates that agency can also and perhaps more profoundly, be realized through the voluntary submission to a divine or ethical norm and the cultivation of virtues. For the women in her study, practices such as veiling or increased prayer were not signs of oppression or a lack of agency, but were rather embodied techniques “technologies of the self” for cultivating inner dispositions like modesty, patience, and God-consciousness (taqwa). Agency, in this context, is not about resisting norms but about inhabiting them in a way that reshapes the self toward a desired ethical ideal.
The Mycelial Ummah model integrates this understanding of agency by framing it as relational and constitutive of collective resilience. The individual’s cultivation of piety (taqwa) is analogous to the work of a single hypha strengthening its cell walls, exploring its environment and forming robust connections. It is not a purely private, individualistic act. A morally, spiritually and ethically developed individual becomes a stronger, more reliable and more productive node within the social network. The overall health, strength and resilience of the community is an emergent property arising from the sum of these individual ethical and pious practices. Political agency is thus radically reframed. It is not primarily the liberal subject’s act of “resistance” against power, but the pious subject’s act of “cultivation” of virtues justice, compassion, trustworthiness, generosity that strengthens the social fabric and enhances the collective’s ability to adapt and thrive. Political action becomes the aggregation of ethical, relational practices that build a strong, just and resilient community from the ground up.
5.3 Diasporic and Underground Networks as Models of Resilience
The practical reality of this form of resilience can be seen in the historical and contemporary experience of Muslim communities that have been forced to exist without the framework or protection of a state. Diasporic communities, political exiles and underground movements demonstrate a resilience born of necessity. In the face of often hostile political environments, these groups rely on dense internal networks of solidarity, mutual aid, shared identity and trust to survive and maintain their cultural and religious integrity.
These networks, whether they be the transnational activism of the Palestinian diaspora , the flexible and adaptive structures of early Sufi orders spreading across Central Asia , or even modern analyses of urban infrastructure networks designed to withstand shocks, all demonstrate that resilience is a key characteristic of decentralized systems. They are able to absorb shocks, reroute resources and information around points of failure and maintain core functions without a central command-and-control structure. These real-world examples provide a powerful socio-political corollary to the biological resilience observed in mycelial networks. They prove that communities can indeed organize themselves and thrive based on
principles of interconnectedness and mutual dependence, offering tangible models for how a Mycelial Ummah might function in practice.
Part III: Critical Horizons and Future Implications
Having constructed the theoretical framework of the Mycelial Ummah, this final part subjects the model to a rigorous critical examination before exploring its potential implications for a transformed Islamic future. A truly robust theory must not only present a compelling vision but must also anticipate, address and integrate the most significant critiques of its methodology and foundational assumptions. This engagement with criticism is not a defensive measure but an essential process of intellectual refinement, ensuring the model is self-aware, nuanced and resilient.
Section 6: Addressing the Critiques: The Limits of Analogy and the Specter of Naturalism
This section turns a critical lens inward, addressing three major challenges to the project’s viability: the jurisprudential critique of analogical reasoning, the philosophical critique of biomimicry and the profound challenge posed by critical theorists of modernity like Talal Asad and Wael Hallaq. These critiques are not treated as obstacles to be overcome, but as essential navigational tools that sharpen the model and prevent it from falling into naive reductionism.
6.1 The Critique of Qiyās (Analogical Reasoning)
The methodology of this essay mapping principles from a biological system onto a theological one is a form of analogical reasoning. In Islamic jurisprudence (uṣūl al-fiqh), one tool for such reasoning is qiyās. However, the validity and scope of qiyās have been a subject of intense debate for centuries. Influential thinkers within the kalām (discursive theology) tradition, notably Abū l-Maꜥālī al-Juwaynī,6 mounted a powerful critique, influenced by Avicennian logic.6 The core of this critique is that if an analogy yields certainty, it is because it is merely a disguised deductive argument (a syllogism), rendering the source case of the analogy itself redundant. If, on the other hand, the analogy does not yield certainty, then it is merely probabilistic and thus unfit for establishing the firm conclusions required in the rational and legal sciences. Furthermore, qiyās is inherently vulnerable to the use of incorrect or flawed analogies, the oversimplification of complex issues and the subjective biases of the interpreter. Modern logicians would classify such reasoning as “defeasible,” meaning its conclusions are provisional and can be overturned by new information or counterarguments.
In response to this valid and powerful critique, it is essential to clarify the nature of the argument being made. The Mycelial Ummah is not proposed as a strict qiyās intended to derive specific, binding legal rulings (fiqh). It is not an attempt to argue, for example, that because fungi do X, a specific Islamic law must be Y. Rather, the project employs analogy as a heuristic device and an ontological model. Its purpose is not legalistic certainty but theoretical innovation and the generation of new conceptual possibilities for Islamic social and political theory. It uses the logic of the mycelial network to ask new questions of the Islamic tradition and to imagine new ways of organizing a community based on principles latent within that tradition. By acknowledging the analogical reasoning as defeasible and heuristic, the model sidesteps the demand for deductive certainty and instead embraces its role as a speculative but generative framework for thought.
6.2 The Critique of Biomimicry
The second major methodological challenge comes from the philosophical critique of biomimicry. While often lauded for its potential to create sustainable solutions, biomimicry is criticized for being a fundamentally technocentric and instrumentalist practice. Critics argue that it can easily reinforce a worldview where nature is seen not as an intrinsically valuable subject but as a passive “model, measure, and mentor” a warehouse of clever designs to be emulated for human purposes, whether for sustainable agriculture or for more effective military surveillance technologies. This raises a profound epistemological ambiguity: are we genuinely “learning from nature,” or are we simply projecting our pre-existing human and technological categories onto the natural world, seeing only what we want to see? This practice risks committing the naturalistic fallacy of improperly deriving normative “oughts” from descriptive “is” statements about nature.
The Mycelial Ummah model is designed to pre-emptively address this critique by being explicitly eco-theological, not technocentric. The normative force of the model is not derived from nature itself. It does not argue “society ought to be decentralized because fungi are.” Instead, it grounds its normativity in a specific Islamic cosmology where the natural world is understood as being sacred (ḥaram), a creation imbued with purpose and a vast tapestry of signs (āyāt) that point to the divine Creator. The mycelial network is not studied as a blueprint to be copied, but as one of these profound āyāt, a manifestation of divine principles of interconnectedness, symbiosis and resilience. The goal is not to “use” nature’s secrets for human ends, but to bring human social organization into greater harmony with the divinely-ordained patterns already manifest in the created world. This shifts the project’s foundation from instrumental reason to theological reflection, from extraction to alignment.
6.3 The Challenge of Asad and Hallaq: Modernity’s Moral Predicament
The most fundamental challenge comes from scholars who critique the very ground upon which modern thought stands. Talal Asad argues that “the secular”7 is not a neutral, empty space separate from religion, but is itself a powerful, historically specific formation of Western modernity that actively produces and regulates the category of “religion” to suit its own political projects. Any intellectual project that operates within the modern binary of “religious versus secular” is already caught within the epistemic framework of the West. Wael Hallaq extends this critique, arguing that the entire paradigm of modernity is founded upon a “moral predicament”: the structural separation of law, politics and economics from any overarching, substantive moral framework. For Hallaq, any project including most modern Islamist ones that fails to challenge this amoral core and instead tries to work within modern categories like the nation-state is doomed to reproduce modernity’s pathologies.
The Mycelial Ummah model is formulated as a direct response to these profound challenges. It is conceived as an explicitly post-secular and post-modern (in Hallaq’s sense of assuming and attempting to transcend modernity ) framework. It confronts Asad’s critique by refusing to accept the secular/religious binary. It does not attempt to “add” religion to a secular political model; instead, it grounds its entire social, political and economic vision in a theological cosmology. It responds directly to Hallaq’s diagnosis of modernity’s moral predicament by proposing a social order where the economic (zakāt), the political (shūrā) and the social (Ummah) are not separated into amoral spheres but are reintegrated under the unifying, overarching moral-theological principle of Tawḥīd. It is an attempt to heed Iqbal’s call8 to “rethink the whole system of Islam without completely breaking with the past” by making a decisive break with the foundational paradigms of modernity. By consciously integrating these critiques into its design, the Mycelial Ummah model becomes more intellectually robust, self aware, and capable of navigating the complex theoretical terrain of the 21st century.
Section 7: Towards an Islamic Eco-Theology: The Khalīfah in the Mycelial Web
The Mycelial Ummah model offers not just a new political or economic theory, but a profound re-envisioning of Islamic environmental ethics. It moves the discourse beyond a paradigm of stewardship of nature to one of stewardship within nature, articulating a lived eco-theology where human well-being is understood to be inseparable from the well-being of the entire web of creation. This shift is predicated on a deeper interpretation of the concept of khalīfah (vicegerency) and a lived commitment to an Islamic cosmology of interconnectedness.
7.1 Re-interpreting Khalīfah (Stewardship)
The foundations of Islamic environmentalism are rooted in core Quranic principles, including Tawḥīd (the Oneness of God, which implies the interconnectedness of all creation), Mīzān (the divine balance inherent in the cosmos) and Khalīfah (humanity’s role as steward or vicegerent). The concept of khalīfah designates humanity as God’s representative on Earth, entrusted with the care and protection of creation. While this concept powerfully counters an ideology of human dominion and exploitation, it can still implicitly maintain a separation between humanity, the steward and nature, the object being stewarded.
The Mycelial Ummah model deepens and ecologizes this concept. By seeing the human community as an integral part of a vast, interconnected biological and spiritual web, the role of the khalīfah is radically reframed. Humanity is no longer a manager standing above and outside of creation, but is instead an embedded, conscious and uniquely responsible node within the web of life. The special status of humanity, endowed with consciousness and the freedom of choice, does not grant a license to dominate, but rather confers the immense responsibility of maintaining the health and balance of the entire network of which it is an inseparable part. This perspective dissolves the destructive human/nature binary that
underpins the modern ecological crisis, a crisis that many Muslim thinkers like Seyyed Hossein Nasr argue is fundamentally a spiritual crisis stemming from the desacralization of nature. A Mycelial Ummah understands that its politics and economics must be aligned with its ecology, because it recognizes that it is an ecology.
This perspective posits that a correct political order can only emerge from a correct relationship with the cosmos. An unjust society that exploits its own members will inevitably extend that logic of exploitation to its environment and a society that wages war on its environment will find that logic of violence turning inward upon itself. By grounding its social theory in an eco-theological cosmology, the Mycelial Ummah model makes just, sustainable and reciprocal relations with the non-human world a precondition for, not an afterthought of, a just human society.
7.2 A Cosmology of Interconnectedness
This ethical reframing is rooted in the deep structure of Islamic cosmology. The Quran and Islamic tradition do not view the universe (al-`ālam) as a dead, meaningless machine, a collection of resources to be inventoried and exploited. Rather, the cosmos is “everything other than Allah” a living, sacred creation imbued with divine purpose. Every element of nature, from a bee to a mountain, is considered an āyah, a sign or verse, that reveals something of the Creator’s power, wisdom and beauty. The natural world is, in effect, a second sacred text, a revelation parallel to the Quran itself.
The Mycelial Ummah is a social structure that attempts to read this sacred text and live according to its principles. By organizing society along the lines of symbiosis, mutual dependence and decentralized cooperation, it seeks to make the theological truth of Tawḥīd the Oneness that underlies all diversity a lived, material reality. In such a community, environmental ethics would cease to be a separate category of regulations (“how to treat nature”) and would become the very fabric of social, economic and political life. The prohibition against wastefulness (isrāf), the principle of justice (‘adl) and the mandate for compassion (raḥmah) would apply seamlessly to interactions between humans and to interactions between humans and the broader community of creation.
Section 8: A Decolonial Horizon: The Mycelial Ummah Beyond the State
The final implication of the Mycelial Ummah model is its potential as a framework for a decolonial Islamic future. By synthesizing the preceding arguments, this section presents the model as a concrete political vision that transcends the dominant structures of modernity namely the Westphalian nation-state and the secular/religious binary and offers a praxis for delinking from the enduring logic of coloniality.
8.1 A Post-Nationalist, Post-Secular Political Vision
The Mycelial Ummah is, by its very design, a post-nationalist model. Its decentralized, networked structure is not defined by territory or borders in the modern sense. Its identity is based on a shared ethical and spiritual commitment (niyyah and belief) rather than on state enforced citizenship. This offers a direct, constructive answer to Wael Hallaq’s critique of the “impossible state.” Instead of attempting the futile project of Islamizing the modern state, it proposes a form of governance that operates on an entirely different ontology, one more aligned with pre-colonial and non-state forms of Muslim social organization, such as the flexible networks of Sufi orders.
Simultaneously, the model is profoundly post-secular. It directly confronts Talal Asad’s challenge by refusing to operate within the conceptual map drawn by Western modernity, which cordons off “religion” from “politics” and “economics”. The Mycelial Ummah collapses these artificial distinctions. Its political process (shūrā) is a form of collective moral reasoning, its economic system (zakāt) is an act of worship and social solidarity and its entire existence is grounded in theological principles like Tawḥīd and Khalīfah. It does not seek a place for religion within a secular public sphere; it envisions a public sphere constituted by a shared moral and theological grammar.
8.2 A Praxis for a Decolonial Future
Decolonial thought seeks to diagnose and dismantle the “coloniality of power,” the enduring global structure of economic, political and epistemic domination that originated with European colonialism but did not end with formal independence. This structure is characterized by extraction, racial, and religious hierarchies and the universalization of Western modes of thought and governance. The centralized, bureaucratic, and culturally homogenizing nation-state has been a primary vehicle for this coloniality.
The Mycelial Ummah offers a concrete praxis for delinking from this matrix of power. Its decentralized, symbiotic and resilient structure is the organizational antithesis of the centralized, extractive and brittle structure of the colonial/modern state. It provides a framework for building communities based on principles of reciprocity, mutual aid and ecological integration rather than competition, extraction and domination. This vision aligns with the core aims of decolonial Islamic thought, which calls for a rejection of Western Christian and secular assumptions about religion and text, a recentering of the spiritual and ethical dimensions of life and the construction of a future based on indigenous Islamic covenantal paradigms rather than colonial impositions.
Crucially, the Mycelial Ummah model is not a proposal for a new, monolithic universalism to replace the old one. It is, by nature, a “pluriversal” project. Mycelial networks are not uniform; they adapt and respond to the specific conditions of their local soil, climate and plant communities. Similarly, historical Sufi networks demonstrated immense flexibility in integrating local cultures and customs. A Mycelial Ummah would not be a single, rigid blueprint imposed from above, but rather a set of guiding principles for fostering a “pluriverse” of diverse, self-governing, interconnected Muslim communities. Each community would be a unique manifestation of the core principles, adapted to its specific ecological and cultural context, yet all would be linked by the same underlying network of shared faith and reciprocal obligation. This framework embraces the rich diversity within the global
Ummah while affirming its fundamental, divinely-ordained unity, offering a path toward a future that is at once deeply rooted in tradition and radically open to the challenges ahead.
Conclusion
The proposition of the ‘Mycelial Ummah’ is an exercise in speculative theology and radical political imagination. It seeks to address a profound and widely felt crisis in contemporary Islamic thought: the inadequacy of the modern nation-state as a vehicle for Muslim aspirations and the urgent need for a social model that is both authentically Islamic and viable in an age of ecological collapse and decolonial struggle. By drawing an extended analogy with the decentralized, symbiotic and resilient principles of biological mycelial networks, this report has constructed a new ontological framework for Islamic social theory one that is post nationalist in its politics, eco-theological in its cosmology and decolonial in its horizon.
The analysis began by establishing the two pillars of the analogy. The mycelial network was shown to be a system of distributed intelligence, complex symbiotic economies marked by both cooperation and competition and a profound, relational resilience. The Islamic Ummah was deconstructed from its Quranic origins as a supra-tribal community of faith, through its transformation into an imperial polity, to its current fragmentation within a Westphalian state system that Wael Hallaq has persuasively argued is metaphysically incompatible with Islamic governance. This “impossible state” thesis creates the intellectual imperative for the very alternative this report proposes.
The core of the investigation systematically mapped mycelial principles onto Islamic concepts. Shūrā was re-imagined not as a formal council but as a distributed, networked intelligence, a form of collective ijtihād that transcends the sterile dichotomy of secular democracy and clerical autocracy. Zakāt was reframed from a simple charity mechanism into a vital, symbiotic circulatory system for productive redistribution, ensuring the health of the entire social organism. The network’s resilience was linked to the deepest metaphysical principle of Tawḥīd, where the unity of the community emerges from the lived recognition of divine oneness and where political agency is redefined not as liberal resistance but as the pious cultivation of virtues that strengthen the collective.
This model was then subjected to rigorous self-critique. By engaging with the limitations of analogical reasoning (qiyās), the philosophical pitfalls of biomimicry and the formidable challenges posed by thinkers like Talal Asad and Saba Mahmood, the Mycelial Ummah framework was refined and fortified. It asserts itself not as a legalistic blueprint derived from a naive naturalism, but as a post-secular and post-modern heuristic model, grounded in an eco-theology that views the natural world as a sacred text.
Ultimately, the Mycelial Ummah emerges as a vision for a decolonial future. It offers a praxis for delinking from the logic of the modern state and its attendant coloniality by proposing a social form built on interdependence, not domination; on circulation, not extraction; and on collective responsibility, not centralized control. It is a pluriversal model, offering not a single solution but a set of principles that can be adapted to diverse local contexts, fostering a world of many interconnected, self-governing and resilient communities. While speculative, the Mycelial Ummah provides a theoretically robust and theologically grounded language for imagining an Islamic future that is just, sustainable and free.
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Mohamed Zaim Kamarudin
An independent writer interested in Islamic thought, technology and the future. He’s currently exploring how tradition can offer insights into the challenges of modernity and transhumanism.
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