Cat stevens who is he

We pray for the families of all those who lost their lives in this unthinkable act of violence as well as all those injured; I hope to reflect the feelings of all Muslims and people around the world whose sympathies go out to the victims of this sorrowful moment. He also donated half of his box-set royalties to the September 11 Fund for victims' families, and the other half to orphans in underdeveloped countries.

Denial of entry into the United States On 21 September Yusuf Islam was traveling on United Airlines Flight from London to Washington , en route to a meeting with singer Dolly Parton who had recorded a cover of " Peace Train" several years earlier and was planning to include another Cat Stevens song on an upcoming album. While the plane was in flight, the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System flagged his name as being on a no-fly list.

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.

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. On 1 October 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.

Libel case victory As a footnote to the actions taken by the U. As a result Yusuf Islam sued for libel, and received a substantial out-of-court, "agreed settlement" and apology from the newspapers. Both newspapers acknowledged that Yusuf Islam has never supported terrorism and that, to the contrary, he had recently been given a Man for Peace award from the Nobel Peace Prize Committee.

Islam responded that he was 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 tsunami in the Indian Ocean. Return to music For several years during the s, Yusuf Islam made recordings featuring lyrics about Islamic themes accompanied only by basic percussion instruments, which he felt were acceptable to his faith. 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.

He later established the record label called Mountain of Light Productions that donates a percentage of its proceeds to Islam's Small Kindness charity.

He performed ""Wild World"" in Nelson Mandela's 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.

In a separate press release, Islam explains 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. 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 , Islam released a new song entitled "Indian Ocean" about the tsunami disaster. 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 the compilation album Cat Stevens: Gold. The Adopt-A-Minefield charity, under the patronage of Sir Paul McCartney , works internationally to raise awareness and funds to clear landmines and rehabilitate landmine survivors.

This documentary film features rare audio and video clips from the late s and s, as well as an extensive interview with Yusuf Islam, his brother, several record executives, Bob Geldof, Dolly Parton, and others outlining his career as Cat Stevens, his conversion and emergence as Yusuf Islam, and his return to music in There are clips of him singing in the studio when he was recording An Other Cup as well as a few excerpts of him on guitar, today, singing a few verses of old Cat Stevens songs including "The Wind" and "On the Road to Find Out".

The album has been produced with Rick Nowels, who has worked with Dido and Rod Stewart and the artist is listed as "Yusuf". Speaking about the album, David Joseph, co-president of Polydor, said: Yusuf is one of the most unique artists the UK has ever produced. You just had to have one glass of that.

The spiritual journey that led to Islam began with a serious bout of tuberculosis in his teens. In hospital in Midhurst in Sussex for three months, he started to read Buddhist literature. But it became the gateway. After a year I could not hold myself back. I had to bow down. Stevens emphasised the importance music has in his life once more. It is something that permeates our emotion, our soul, sometimes our intellect. Our body moves to it. Writing a popular song in his youth, Stevens admitted, was a conscious process.

It was the era of the sensitive singer-songwriter, and Stevens fit right in on the airwaves next to James Taylor and Carly Simon.

Even when he became a superstar, Stevens had a hard time enjoying himself — tuberculosis helped see to that. I became a vegetarian, and I carried around a suitcase full of vitamins and special drinks everywhere I went. Everything changed one day in , when Stevens went for a swim in the ocean near Malibu. As he tried to swim back to shore, he realized the current was too strong to fight, and after struggling for a time he found himself on the verge of drowning. This was life-and-death. Not long afterward, his brother David gave him a copy of the Quran.

I felt like I was discovering something that was an amazing and immense secret. Within two years, Cat Stevens had become Yusuf Islam. He devoted himself to Allah, deciding all forms of music were against the faith. He walked away from a record contract and sold all of his guitars. So, no. Yusuf lost touch with the music world. It was late at night, and his family was asleep.

Yusuf was conflicted about playing again, but the war in Afghanistan was raging and another conflict was looming in Iraq. Yusuf says that the world needed to see at least one nonviolent Muslim on TV. Thank you.