Yusuf Islam

[Rasputin]

Well i want to write for you now about Cat Stevens .he was one the the 1970's most popular musical artists. With a string of hit records and sold-out concerts he rocketed to superstardom. His album "Tea For The Tillerman" is considered to be one of the best of its genre and his name is still a household word. So what happened to him? Why did he leave pop stardom behind? What is he doing now?

Cat Stevens was born Stephen Demetre Georgiou on July 21st, 1948 to a Greek Cypriot father and Swedish mother. In the late 60's he had a string of hit records in the UK including "I Love My Dog," "Matthew And Son," and "The First Cut Is the Deepest." He later repeated his success throughout the world with a number of top selling albums including "Tea For The Tillerman" and "Teaser And The Firecat." In 1977 Cat Stevens embraced Islam and became a Muslim. Two years later he changed his name to Yusuf Islam and left the music business as Cat Stevens forever.

Why did he become a Muslim? In the late 70's Cat was introduced to Islam by his brother David Gordon who gave him a copy of the Qur'an -- the holy book the of Muslims. Cat was immediately impressed by the religion and ultimately adopted it. He later changed his name to Yusuf Islam. He stopped making music because he felt that the life of a pop star was incompatible with the life of a Muslim. The following is from a statement by Yusuf Islam.

"It was in fact the Surah called ‘The Poets’ which made me stop and evaluate my life and abandon the music business when I embraced Islam twenty years ago. Towards the end of the chapter, Allah, the Almighty, says:"


Shall I inform you upon whom the devils descend?
They descend on every sinful false one.
They listen eagerly, but most of them are liars.
As for the poets, the deviants follow them.
Hast thou not seen how they stray in every valley,
And how they say that which they do not?
Except those who believe and do good works,
and remember Allah much, and vindicate themselves
after they have been wronged. Those who do wrong will
come to know by what a (great) reverse they will be
overturned.

What is he doing now? Yusuf is a prominent and well respected member of the British Muslim community. He runs two primary schools and is the chairman of several charities. He has released several Islamic albums since leaving the music business.

Did he auction off all of his musical instruments? Yes he did auction off all of his musical instruments and other items (gold records, etc) after converting to Islam. To the best of my knowledge he does not own a guitar.

How does he feel about his old music now? Yusuf still profits from his record sales and uses the money mostly for charity purposes. His music is not forbidden in his home, nor is it encouraged. His own children know and enjoy his albums. He does however have problems with the subject matter of some of his songs, particularly those of a sexual or religious nature that are not compatible with his new beliefs. Profits from these songs are donated directly to charity and never pass through Yusuf's hands.

Is he married, what about his family? Yes. Yusuf is happily married and has five children - 4 daughters and one son (Muhammad)

Well.. is good to be moslem or not !? who knows ?! ...

[Rasputin]

Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens)

Yusuf Islam (born Steven Demetre Georgiou on July 21, 1948 better known by his stage name Cat Stevens, is a British musician, singer-songwriter and prominent convert to Islam.

At the outset of his musical career, Islam adopted the stage name Cat Stevens. As Cat Stevens, he sold over sixty million albums, mostly in the 1970s. His most notable songs include "Morning Has Broken", "Peace Train", "Moonshadow", "Wild World", "Father and Son", "Matthew and Son", "The First Cut Is the Deepest", and "Oh Very Young".

Stevens became a convert to Islam in 1977 after a near-death experience. He adopted the name Yusuf Islam in 1979 and became an outspoken advocate for the religion. A decade later, controversy arose when he was reported to have made comments supporting a fatwa calling for the murder of author Salman Rushdie, and in 2004 returned to the public eye when he was denied entry into the United States after his name appeared on a no-fly list.

Yusuf Islam currently lives with his wife and children in London, where he is an active member of the Muslim community. He founded the Small Kindness charity, which initially assisted famine victims in Africa and now supports thousands of orphans and families in the Balkans, Indonesia, and Iraq.[2] Islam also founded the charity Muslim Aid but left as founding Chairman in 1999.

Steven Georgiou was the third child of a Greek-Cypriot father (Stavros Georgiou) and a Swedish mother (Ingrid Wickman). The family lived above the restaurant that his parents operated on Shaftesbury Avenue in London's central district of Holborn, a few steps from Piccadilly Circus and Soho.

Although his father was Greek Orthodox, Georgiou was sent to a Catholic school, St. Joseph Roman Catholic Primary School in Macklin Street.

When Georgiou was about eight years old, his parents divorced, although they both continued to live above the restaurant. Later, his mother moved back to Gävle, Sweden and took him with her. It was there that he started developing his drawing skills, due to the influence of his uncle Hugo (a painter).

At age 16, he left high school and was accepted, then later dismissed from, Hammersmith Art School. It was during this period he was first influenced by folk music
At age 18 in 1966, eager to establish a music career, Georgiou sought the help of manager/producer Mike Hurst. Hurst enjoyed Georgiou's songs and had a friend financially support his first single, "I Love My Dog". Over the next two years, Georgiou toured with moderate success and placed several single releases in the British pop music charts under the name "Cat Stevens". His debut album was Matthew and Son which was released in 1966. At the end of 1967, Stevens released New Masters which failed to chart in the United Kingdom; the album is now most notable for "The First Cut Is the Deepest" which has become an international hit for P.P. Arnold, Rod Stewart and Sheryl Crow.

On August 14, 1967, his voice joined with other recording artists on the airwaves of Wonderful Radio London bemoaning the loss of the pirate radio station which had helped create his first hit record.

In early 1968, at the age of nineteen, Stevens contracted tuberculosis. After several months in the hospital and a year of convalescence, Stevens returned to recording, but his attempts at a comeback single were poorly received.

In 1970, Stevens signed with Island Records and released Mona Bone Jakon, an introspective, folk music-based album that was markedly different from his earlier work. The album featured the songs "Lady D'Arbanville" that was written for Stevens' girlfriend at the time, actress Patti D'Arbanville; "Pop Star" that commented on his mixed success as a '60s teen hitmaker; and "Katmandu", featuring Genesis frontman Peter Gabriel playing flute.

The album presaged the coming singer-songwriter boom and set the stage for Stevens' international breakthrough album, Tea for the Tillerman. Tillerman combined a brighter sound and subject matter with Stevens' new folk style, and became a hit on both sides of the Atlantic, highlighted by the top-10 single "Wild World".

Having established a signature sound, Stevens enjoyed a string of successes over the following years. Teaser and the Firecat (1971) reached #2 in the US and yielded several hits, including "Peace Train", "Morning Has Broken" (featuring Yes's Rick Wakeman on piano), and "Moonshadow".

Subsequent releases throughout the 1970s were met with consistent success; the final album under the name Cat Stevens was Back to Earth, released in late 1978.

[Rasputin]

Conversion and life as Yusuf Islam
When Stevens nearly drowned in an accident in Malibu in 1976, he pleaded with God to save him. Stevens described the event in a VH1 interview some years later: "I suddenly held myself and I said, 'Oh God! If you save me, I'll work for you.'" The near-death experience intensified his long-held quest for spiritual truth; when his brother David gave him a copy of the Qur'an, Stevens began to find peace with himself and began his transition to Islam. He formally converted to the Islamic faith in 1977 and he legally changed his name to Yusuf Islam.

Muslim faith and musical career
Following his conversion, Islam abandoned his career as a pop star. Song and the use of musical instruments is an area of debate in Muslim jurisprudence (law) and is the primary reason Cat Stevens retreated from the pop spotlight. At one point he wrote to the record companies asking that his music no longer be distributed, but his request was denied.

In 1981 Islam founded Islamia Primary School in Salusbury Road in the north London area of Kilburn.

In 1985, Islam decided to return to the public spotlight for the first time since his religious conversion at the historic Live Aid concert, inspired by the famine threatening Ethiopia. Though he had written a song especially for the occasion, his appearance was skipped when Elton John's set ran too long.
For several years during the 1990s, he made recordings featuring Islamic lyrics accompanied only by basic percussion instruments in his compositions. He also produced an album called A is for Allah as an instruction for children after realizing there were few materials designed to educate children about the Islamic religion.[5] He later established the record label called Mountain of Light Productions that donates a percentage of its proceeds to Islam's Small Kindness charity.

In 2003, after repeated encouragement from within the Muslim world, Yusuf Islam once again recorded the song "Peace Train" for a compilation CD which also included performances by David Bowie and Paul McCartney.

He performed ""Wild World"" in Nelson Mandela's 46664 Concert with his former session player Peter Gabriel, for which he both performed and recorded in the English language for the first time in twenty-five years. Islam explained that the reason why he had stopped performing in English was due to his own misunderstanding of the Islamic faith:

This issue of music in Islam is not as cut-and-dried as I was led to believe ... I relied on heresy [sic], that was perhaps my mistake.[5]

In a separate press release, Islam rationalises his revived recording career:

After I embraced Islam many people told me to carry on composing and recording but at the time I was hesitant for fear that it might be for the wrong reasons. I felt unsure what the right course of action was. I guess it is only now after all these years that I've come to fully understand and appreciate what everyone has been asking of me. It's as if I've come full circle - however, I have gathered a lot of knowledge on the subject in the meantime.[6]

In December 2004, he and Ronan Keating released a new version of "Father and Son". It debuted at number two, behind Band Aid 20's "Do They Know It's Christmas?". The proceeds of "Father and Son" were donated to the Band Aid charity. Keating's former group, Boyzone, had also had a hit with a cover version of the song a decade earlier.

In early 2005, Islam released a new song entitled "Indian Ocean" about the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. The song featured Indian composer/producer A. R. Rahman; A-ha keyboard player, Magne Furuholmen and Travis drummer, Neil Primrose. Proceeds of the single went to help orphans in Banda Aceh, one of the areas worst affected by the tsunami, through Islam's Small Kindness charity. At first, the single was only released through several online music stores but now highlights Cat Stevens: Gold.

On 28 May 2005 Yusuf Islam delivered a keynote speech and performed at the Adopt-A-Minefield Gala in Düsseldorf. The Adopt-A-Minefield charity, under the patronage of Sir Paul McCartney and Heather Mills McCartney, works internationally to raise awareness and funds to clear landmines and rehabilitate landmine survivors. Yusuf Islam attended as part of an honorary committee – which also included Sir George Martin, Sir Richard Branson, Dr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Klaus Voormann, Christopher Lee and others. [1]

In mid-2005, Yusuf Islam played guitar for the Dolly Parton album of cover songs entitled, "Those Were The Days", on her version of "Where Do The Children Play". Parton herself had recorded a cover of "Peace Train" a few years earlier.

[Rasputin]

In March 2006, Billboard magazine reported Yusuf Islam had finished recording his first pop album since 1978. The currently untitled album will be released by Polydor Records in November 2006—on the 40th anniversary of his first album, I Love My Dog. The album has been produced by Rick Nowels, who has worked with Dido and Rod Stewart.[7] Speaking about the album, David Joseph, co-president of Polydor, said:

Yusuf is one of the most unique artists the UK has ever produced. The new album is sensational and will prove to be one of the biggest musical highlights of the year. His voice and melody are totally timeless.[7]

Islam wrote all the songs for the album and recorded it in both the United States and the United Kingdom
On February 21, 1989 Yusuf Islam addressed students at Kingston University in London about his journey to Islam. He was asked to describe the controversy in the Muslim world and the fatwa promising Salman Rushdie's execution. Islam claims to have only stated the legal consequences from the Qur'an and not actually have made any claims of support for the fatwa. Newspapers quickly denounced Yusuf Islam's "support" for a possible assassination of Rushdie. Shortly afterwards he released a statement clarifying that he was not personally encouraging anybody towards vigilantism.

The New York Times reported on May 23, 1989 [9] that Islam was to be on a British television program the following week, and was quoted as saying:

[If Rushdie turned up at my doorstep looking for help,] I might ring somebody who might do more damage to him than he would like. I'd try to phone the Ayatollah Khomeini and tell him exactly where this man is.

Islam's most recent clarification of the issue is stated in a 2003 article on CatStevens.com[10], wherein he says that he never stated support but was straightforwardly describing what he understood of Muslim law, and laying the controversy at the door of "journalistic malice":

I was simply a new Muslim who had stated something which I considered quite plain and obvious and if you were to ask a Bible student you know what the Ten Commandments were you would expect him to repeat them honestly, you wouldn't blame him for doing so; the Bible is full of similar headlines if you’re looking for them.

The backlash over the Rushdie incident included the band 10,000 Maniacs, who had covered "Peace Train" on their 1987 In My Tribe album. The band deleted the song from subsequent pressings of their album as a protest against Islam's alleged remarks.

On 21 September 2004 Yusuf Islam was traveling on United Airlines Flight 919 from London to Washington. While the plane was in flight, the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System flagged his name as being on a no-fly list. Customs agents alerted the Transportation Security Administration, which then diverted his flight to Bangor, Maine, where he was detained by the FBI.

The following day Islam was deported back to the United Kingdom. The United States Transportation Security Administration claimed there were "concerns of ties he may have to potential terrorist-related activities." The United States Department of Homeland Security specifically alleged that Islam had provided funding to the Palestinian Islamic militant group Hamas, although it did not offer any proof of its allegation.

Islam's deportation provoked a small international controversy and led British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw to complain personally to Secretary of State Colin Powell at the United Nations. Powell responded by stating that the watch list was under review, and added, "I think we have that obligation to review these matters to see if we are right."

His identification as being on the watch list may be in error. On 1 October 2004 Islam was reported to have requested the removal of his name and stated, "I remain bewildered by the decision of the US authorities to refuse me entry to the United States."[1] According to an official statement by Islam, the man on the list was named Yousef Islam, indicating that Yusuf Islam himself was in fact, not the suspected terror supporter.

As a footnote to the actions taken by the U.S. government in deporting Yusuf Islam as a terrorist, The Sun and The Sunday Times British newspapers had published reports in October 2004 which stated that the U.S. was correct in its action. As a result Yusuf Islam sued for libel, and received a substantial out-of-court, "agreed settlement" and apology from the newspapers.[11] Both newspapers acknowledged that Islam has never supported terrorism and that, to the contrary, he had recently been given a Man of Peace award. Islam responded that he was:

...delighted by the settlement [which] helps vindicate my character and good name. ... It seems to be the easiest thing in the world these days to make scurrilous accusations against Muslims, and in my case it directly impacts on my relief work and damages my reputation as an artist. The harm done is often difficult to repair.

He added that he intended to donate the financial award given to him by the court to help orphans of the recent Indian Ocean Tsunami. Yusuf Islam wrote about the experience in a newspaper article titled "A Cat in a Wild World".[12]

[Rasputin]

Cat Stevens was nominated to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005 but was not voted in. [13][14]

20 October 2005 Yusuf Islam was named Songwriter of the Year and also received Song of the Year honors for "The First Cut Is The Deepest" at a special presentation in London. At the ceremony The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) honored the top British writer and publisher members of the UK's Performing Rights Society. [2]

On 10 November 2004, Yusuf Islam was presented with a Man of Peace award by the private foundation of former USSR president Mikhail Gorbachev for his "dedication to promote peace, the reconciliation of people and to condemn terrorism". The ceremony was held in Rome, Italy and attended by five Nobel Peace Prize laureates. Almost a year later on 4 November 2005, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Gloucestershire for services to education and humanitarian relief.

Discography (albums)

As Cat Stevens

Cat Stevens' last pop album, Back to Earth (1978 Matthew and Son (1966)
New Masters (1967)
Mona Bone Jakon (1970)
Tea for the Tillerman (1970)
Teaser and the Firecat (1971)
Catch Bull at Four (1972)
Foreigner (1973)
Buddha and the Chocolate Box (1974)
Saturnight (Live in Tokyo) (1974)
Numbers (1975)
Izitso (1977)
Back to Earth (197
Majikat (2005)
Gold (2005 compilation)
And many other anthologies and compilations.
A box set containing many rarities and live tracks was released in 2001.

As Yusuf Islam
The Life of the Last Prophet (1995)
I Have No Cannons that Roar (1998
Prayers of the Last Prophet (1999)
A is for Allah (2000)
I Look I See (2003)

[donsaeid]

i think it is best to have it in Music part of the forum...

[donsaeid]

بازگشت جنجال*برانگيز «يوسف اسلام» به عرصه موسيقي


«يوسف اسلام»، «كت استيونس» سابق، پس از گذشت سه دهه از مسلمان شدن خود و جدا شدن از موسيقي پاپ، اولين آلبوم تجاري خود را مجددا منتشر مي*كند.



به نقل از خبرگزاري فرانسه، «يوسف اسلام» در حالي به عرصه موسيقي بازمي*گردد كه از سوي بسياري از مردم مورد انتقاد گرفته است.
به عقيده برخي، او با اين كار خود نسبت به دين خود، اسلام بي*توجهي كرده است.
«استيونس» طي دهه*هاي 60 و 70 ميلادي با آهنگ*هايي چون «دنياي وحشي»، «سايه مهتاب» و «My Lady d'Arbanville» در سطح جهان معروف شد.
وي در سال 1977 علي*رغم تمام موفقيتش در عرصه موسيقي پاپ با مطالعه و تحقيق در باب قرآن تصميم گرفت تا گيتار خود را براي هميشه زمين گذاشته، نام خود را به «يوسف اسلام» تغيير داده و دين اسلام را برگزيند، و هم اكنون پس از 28 سال او بار ديگر تصميم گرفته تا به عرصه موسيقي بازگردد.
او قرار است در نوامبر آلبوم «فنجاني ديگر» را بار ديگر منتشر كند.
اين خواننده 58 ساله در مصاحبه تلويزيوني اخير خود با بي*بي*سي ضمن تاييد اين خبر گفته او در واقع به ريشه*هاي خود بازمي*گردد.
«اسلام» گفت: در حقيقت، اسلام طي سه دهه اخير به هيچ وجه مانع فعاليت من در اين عرصه نشده بود.
وي در مقاله*اي كه سال گذشته با عنوان رابطه موسيقي و ايمان منتشر كرد، عنوان كرد: برخي مسلمانان از من به خاطر برخي فعالييت*هايم در عرصه موسيقي، از جمله انتشار مجدد برخي از آلبوم*هايم به شدت انتقاد كرده*اند.
وي در ادامه مي*افزايد: من با اين عقيده كه برخي از موسيقي*هاي تاثير گذار حرام هستند ولي اين حكم در مورد هر خواننده و هر موسيقي حكم نمي*كند.
وي متذكر مي*شود: حقيقت اين است كه بسياري از آناني كه نوارهاي من را به عنوان كت استيونس خريداري مي*كنند مسلمان نيستند، ولي اكثر كساني كه به آهنگ*هاي قديمي من گوش مي*دهند مي*تواند تشخيص دهند كه اين آهنگ*ها سرشار از روح موسقيايي از زبان يك جوينده، تشنه صلح و كسي بيرون مي*آيد كه در پي يافتن رازهاي سر به مهر زندگي است.
او در اين مقاله مي*افزايد: در حقيقت، در جمهوري اسلامي ايران، مقامات اخيرا به اين نتيجه رسيده*اند كه آهنگ*هاي قديمي من به عنوان كت استيونس، نمونه*هاي خوبي است، تا با انتشار آنها به نسل جوان جامعه خود اثبات كنند كه نگرش خوبي نسبت به موسيقي و هنر دارند.
«يوسف اسلام» هفته گذشته برخي از آهنگ*هاي آلبوم جديد خود را براي مخاطبان خصوصي از جمله «بيل كلينتون»، رييس جمهور سابق آمريكا اجرا كرد.
اولين آهنگ از آلبوم جديد «استيونس»، در آغاز ماه نوامبر به مناسبت چهلمين سال انتشار اولين آلبوم وي منتشر خواهد شد.
در حاليكه خبر بازگشت «يوسف اسلام» به عرصه موسيقي در اروپا و جهان اسلام جنجال زيادي بوجود آورده، «خبرگزاري فرانسه» طي دو ماه گذشته براي دومين بار اقدام به انتشار اين خبر در قالبي مشابه نموده است.

[donsaeid]

«يوسف اسلام» در گروه كنسرت «جايزه صلح نوبل» مي*نوازد


«يوسف اسلام»، كت استيونس سابق از جمله نوازندگان كنسرت جايزه صلح نوبل كه هرساله يازدهم دسامبر (20 آذر) اجرا مي*شود، خواهد بود.



به نقل از سايت رسمي يوسف اسلام، اين كنسرت هرساله در تجليل جايزه نوبل صلح، يازدهم دسامبر، يك روز پس از مراسم اهداي اين جايزه در اسلو، پايتخت نروژ برگزار مي*شود.

جايزه صلح نوبل امسال به «محمد يونس»، اقتصاددان 66 ساله بنگلادشي، مؤسس يك بانك،كه در برنامه كمك*هاي مالي-اعتباري به افراد فقير و كم درآمد در بنگلادش نقش بنيادي داشته است، اهدا خواهد شد.

اين بانك به افراد كم در آمد بخصوص زنها كمك مالي مي*دهد تا آنها بتوانند فعاليت اقتصادي بكنند.

كنسرت مراسم اهداي جايزه صلح نوبل امسال با مجري*گري «شارون استون» و «آنجليكا هوستون» برگزار خواهد شد كه «يوسف اسلام» نيز يكي از نوازندگان اين كنسرت خواهد بود.

«يوسف اسلام» 58 ساله با مليت انگليسي و مذهب كاتوليك سال 1977 به دين اسلام پيوست.

او هم*اكنون به عنوان يكي از فعالان اسلامي در سراسر جهان شناخته شده اس

[donsaeid]

دلايل «يوسف اسلام» براي بازگشت به دنياي موسيقي


«يوسف اسلام»، كت استيونس سابق كه اخيرا خبر بازگشت او به عرصه موسيقي جنجال زيادي به پا كرده است،در مصاحبه با شبكه خبري CBS دلايل بازگشت خود به اين عرصه را توضيح داد.



به نقل از پايگاه اينترنتي اسلام*آنلاين، «يوسف اسلام» كه حدود سه دهه پيش در اوج شهرت در عرصه موسيقي پاپ با پيوستن به دين مبين اسلام از موسيقي كناره گرفته هم*اكنون پس از آن همه مدت بار ديگر آلبوم جديدي منتشر كرده است.

«يك فنجان ديگر» پس از آلبوم «بازگشت به زمين» كه در سال 1978 تحت نام «كت استيونس» منتشر شد، اولين آلبوم «اسلام» محسوب مي*شود.

وي روز گذشته در مصاحبه با «مارك فليپس»، خبرنگار «CBS» گفت: در اين مقطع از زمان شايد اين بهترين كاري باشد كه مي*توانم انجام دهم زيرا در عرصه*هاي سخنراني، سياست و مذهبي فعلا مشغوليت خاصي ندارم.

وي افزود: من فقط خواستار برقراري ارتباط قلب*ها با يكديگرم، و مي*خواهم مطمئن شوم كه مردم خواهند توانست قسمتي از حقيقت زيبا و لطيف آنچه كه من به آن رسيده*ام را بفهمند.

او كه در سال 1978 از موسيقي كنار گرفته و به دين مبين اسلام پيوسته است گفت: بسياري از مردم خيلي دوست دارند كه من به خوانندگي و نوازندگي ادامه دهم.

اسلام درباره تنش*هاي مذهبي كه اخيرا در برخي از نقاط جهان به وجود آمده است، گفت: من فكر نمي*كنم كه خداوند براي ما پيامبر و كتاب فرستاده باشد تا با آن بجنگيم. بلكه آنها در حقيقت به ما مي*گويند كه چگونه در كنار هم زندگي كنيم، كه اگر ما از همه اين حقايق چشم*پوشي كنيم ، از ديني كه به آن تعلق داريم، از ايمان قلبي خود، آن وقت است كه به نظر من خود را در مشكلاتي عميق*تر خواهيم يافت.

وي درباره اينكه چرا پس از اين همه مدت تصميم گرفته تا به عرصه موسيقي بازگردد گفت: زمانيكه پسرم يك گيتار به خانه آورد، اتفاق بزرگي براي من روي داد.

وي افزود: همانطور كه مي*دانيد من در سال 1979 همه گيتارهاي خو را صرف امور خيريه كردم و براي قريب به دو دهه حقيقتا هيچ*يك از آلات موسيقي را لمس نكردم ولي سرانجام يكروز كه همه خواب بودند و هيچكس نمي*ديد، من آن گيتار را برداشتم....و با كمال تعجب ديدم كه هنوز مي*دانستم كه انگشتانم را كجا بگذارم. و تصميم گرفتم تا آلبوم جديد خود با نام «فنجاني ديگر» را منتشر كنم.

وي درباره نام آلبوم خود گفت: شما مي*دانيد يك فنجان فضايي است براي پركردن، و شما مي*توانيد آن را با هرآنچه كه مي*خواهيد پركنيد.

«يوسف» گفت: براي آن دست از كساني كه «كت استيونس» را جستجو مي*كنند، آن را در اين آلبوم خواهند يافت، ولي اگر مي*خواهند «يوسف» را بيابند، بايد قدري عميق*تر بنگرند در آن صورت آن را خواهند يافت.

وي افزود: من به نواختن براي رسيدن به جهاني صلح*آميز مي*انديشم.

«يوسف اسلام» 58 ساله با مليت انگليسي و مذهب كاتوليك سال 1977 به دين اسلام پيوست.
او هم*اكنون به عنوان يكي از فعالان اسلامي در سراسر جهان شناخته شده اس

[Khorsheed]

a lot of people are converting to islam

[Rasputin]

Notions of Islam

The singer once known as Cat Stevens renounced his guitar when he converted to Islam. But now, as he plans a new cultural centre, Yusuf Islam is adapting his faith to his music, he explains to Pete Paphides

There’s no mistaking the anxiety in Yusuf Islam’s body language. Once the man formerly known as Cat Stevens has exchanged brisk, polite greetings, he paces over to a table where his manager is seated. The task of choosing a new publicity photo from a laptop seems to take a small eternity. But this, you suspect, isn’t the primary source of anxiety. In five hours a plane will take him to South Africa, where he will record his parts for a forthcoming children’s album. In five days, Brent Council will tell him whether his application to build an Islamic cultural centre on the grounds of an old church has been successful.

The timing is ironic. While, in other parts of the UK, Islamic jihadists have been linked with attempts to blow up buildings, the moderate Yusuf Islam’s attempts to erect one have been met with local protest. Contrary to reports that he wants to build a 22-storey “tower of peace”, the £4.5 million Maqam Community Building is “a cultural centre centred around the Islamic faith but accessible to all”, including a gym, crèche, café and exhibition space. Its architect, Robert O’Hara, says it’s designed to “get rid of the awful image that Islam has had put upon it”.

So is this a rebranding of Yusuf Islam, the former troubadour who famously appeared to support the fatwa on Salman Rushdie, or a typically altruistic initiative from one of the Western world’s most high-profile Muslim philanthropists? It’s a tension of which Yusuf himself is painfully aware. On last year’s come-back album An Other Cup he was billed plainly as Yusuf. No need to hold a focus group to determine why that might be. Still, it’s a battle he appears to be winning. When he closes his short set at the Hamburg leg of Live Earth with Peace Train, he’ll be playing before his biggest audience in 28 years. “I felt I’ve written sufficient songs about this subject to commit to it and make a stand,” he says.

Dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, the 58-year-old singer looks trim and healthy. His accent, rich in London colloquialisms and glottal stops, is somehow surprising. Given that Yusuf has spent almost all his life in London, it shouldn’t be. But then, after more than three decades spent in the sanctuary of a new identity, it’s only natural to think that Yusuf Islam is a completely different person from Cat Stevens. Wasn’t that the intention when, in 1980, he followed his conversion to Islam by auctioning his guitars for charity?

So why come back now? In truth, the tunes never dried up. Even a few months into his new life as Yusuf Islam, the singer celebrated the birth of his son by recording a song A Is for Allah. He had renounced his guitar, but this unaccompanied paean to his new child topped the charts in Turkey. Soon though, even the Islamic nursery rhymes ceased. Yusuf Islam had four more children. His public appearances were mostly restricted to talks in which he explained to other London Muslims the reasons why his old life had left him unfulfilled.

With the benefit of hindsight, several Cat Stevens songs seem to signpost his future path. On Into White, his desire to declutter his interior world sounds like a prayer of desperation. To anyone who knew a little about the childhood of the singer born Steven Georgiou, Where Do the Children Play? didn’t require too much analysis. His Greek-Cypriot father and Swedish mother ran a café on the busy West End junction of New Oxford Street and Shaftesbury Avenue. “I was there every night of my life. Where did I hang around? Well, one of the little escapades I used to take part in was climbing roofs. It was pretty dangerous, and one time I nearly fell, but it wasn’t something you would dwell upon.”

He was still living with his parents when he first tasted fame. Interviewed in 1967 about his feudal pop parable Matthew & Son, Stevens pondered: “When I try to sit down and work out what I am, it worries me because I don’t know.” When he returned in earnest with Tea for the Tillerman, in 1970, after a year laid low with tuberculosis, he had found a sound that better mirrored his internal anxieties. These days back-packing buskers still rattle out Wild World or Father and Son to a light rain of loose change.

Stevens found that the choices opened up by success didn’t necessarily make him any happier. Fame had merely complicated matters. “I’ve gone too far to have an ordinary life and ordinary relationships,” he told one interviewer in 1975. “I can’t see myself ever settling down properly, unless something incredible happens.” Reminded of the utterance, Yusuf lets forth an amused nod. That was also the year he shaved off his hair and beard and decamped to Brazil, Ethiopia and Malibu for an extended sabbatical. “I knew how many sins I was accumulating. There was a sense of waiting for an epiphany or something.”

Talking about the moment that saved him, Yusuf is clearly describing what he regards as a physical act of divine intervention. “I was in serious trouble [swimming] in the Pacific Ocean in Malibu, and I had lost all power to swim. Suddenly I called out for God’s help. And then a wave came and helped me get back to the shore.”

As his children grew up, was it a source of intrigue that their father used to be a pop star? Or did he try and withhold that information? “There was no question of doing that,” he smiles between long, measured sips of tea, “They had been in the audience at enough of my lectures to be fully aware of what I had done.” They were also in the audience in March, at the singer’s first UK show in 28 years, filmed for a new DVD entitled Yusuf’s Café. Now that his role in Father and Son had switched, how strange must it have been for Yusuf to find himself singing lines such as “Look at me/I am old but I’m happy”?

The last time Yusuf performed the song was in 1979 at the Unicef Year of the Child Concert at Wembley. “My wife was expecting, but we hadn’t told anybody. And when I sing it now, I sing it from the point of view of someone who still has a lot to learn from his children.”

[Rasputin]

Now his son Mohammed, 27, is a singer who records under the name Yoriyos. Watching his son play the instrument that he renounced at the height of his fame has allowed Yusuf Islam to be more accepting of his younger self. “Mohammed is like me when I was young, and yet he’s assertive of his own identity – which is exactly what I was like. So he helped me to see myself with younger eyes. Also, [the guitar] had not been accepted by a conservative school of thought [within Islam]. But, on analysis, I discovered it wasn’t so long ago that Islamic culture thrived in Europe. Then, you get to find out that – guess what? – the guitar was introduced to Europe through Islamic Spain.”

Because he refuses to talk about the quotes attributed to him during the Salman Rushdie furore, it’s impossible to discover whether his views on that fatwa have moderated. Rushdie, writing to The Sunday Telegraph in response to an article that played down Yusuf’s part in the controversy, quoted from The New York Times in which Yusuf apparently said that burning “the real thing” would be preferable to burning effigies of the writer. Signing off, the author then added: “Let’s have no more rubbish about how ‘green’ and ‘innocent’ this man was.”

But whatever Yusuf might have once rashly condoned in the name of Islam, the terrorist atrocities of recent years appear to have clarified his outlook. After 9/11 he flew to New York and sang Peace Train at the benefit concert for families of the firefighters who lost their lives in the attacks. Even before 9/11, he was part of a mission to deliver $33,000 to refugees on the Kosovan border.

Though the wider world has gradually warmed to Yusuf’s peaceful overtures, US security forces have been more cautious. Three years ago a United Airlines flight on which Yusuf and his 19-year-old daughter were travelling was diverted after the discovery of his name on a nofly list. The singer suspected nothing until the plane landed in Maine – “and six or seven tall, uniformed FBI agents walked on board. My daughter and I were separated through the whole ordeal”.

When the time came to make a new album, one of the first songs he recorded for it was a cover of Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood. If the song is a response to what he sees as his typecasting, the decision to step back into music is fuelled by the same impulse. “As long as you’re singing,” he says, “there are no interfering bodies trying to corrupt what you’re doing.”

Calling his album An Other Cup was symbolic. “Tea and coffee are drinks that unite almost all people all over the world. Therefore, there’s a whole lot more we have to share from this cup of life, regardless of faith.”

Four days after our interview, Brent Council gave Yusuf the go-ahead to build his cultural centre.