No, I really don't know...please do tell.
Iv'e never pasted anything this big before .
I feel like Ursus (no offence)
Life as Yusuf Islam (1978–present)
[edit] Muslim faith and musical career
Following his conversion, Yusuf abandoned his music career. When he became a Muslim in 1977, he said, the Imam at the mosque was told that he was a pop star, and he told Yusuf that it was fine to continue as a musician, so long as the songs were morally acceptable. But Yusuf says he knew there were aspects of the music business, such as vanity and temptations, that did go against the teachings of the Qu'ran,[50] and this was the primary reason he gave for retreating from the spotlight. But in his first performance on the television show Later... with Jools Holland, 27 years after leaving the music business, and in other interviews, he gave different reasons for leaving: "A lot of people would have loved me to keep singing," he said. "You come to a point where you have sung, more or less ... your whole repertoire and you want to get down to the job of living. You know, up until that point, I hadn't had a life. I'd been searching, been on the road."[9]
Estimating in January 2007 that he continues to earn approximately $1.5 million USD a year from his Cat Stevens music,[51] he decided to use his accumulated wealth and ongoing earnings from his music career on philanthropic and educational causes in the Muslim community of London and elsewhere. In 1981, he founded the Islamia Primary School in Salusbury Road in the north London area of Kilburn and, soon after, founded several Muslim secondary schools; in 1992, Yusuf set up The Association of Muslim Schools (AMS-UK), a charity that brought together all the Muslim schools in the UK, and served as chairman.[citation needed] He is also the founder and chairman of 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.[52] He served as chairman of the charity Muslim Aid from 1985 to 1993.[53]
In 1985, Yusuf decided to return to the public spotlight for the first time since his religious conversion, at the historic Live Aid concert, concerned with 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.[54]
[edit] Salman Rushdie controversy
Main article: Cat Stevens' comments about Salman Rushdie
The singer attracted controversy in 1989, during an address to students at London's Kingston University, where he was asked about the fatwa calling for the death of author Salman Rushdie. The media interpreted his response as support for the fatwa. Yusuf released a statement the following day denying that he supported vigilantism, and claiming that he had merely recounted the legal Islamic punishment for blasphemy. In a BBC interview, he displayed a newspaper clipping from that time period, which quotes from his statement. Subsequent comments made by him in 1989 on a British television programme were also seen as being in support of the fatwa. In a statement in the FAQ section of his web site,[55] Yusuf asserted that he was joking and that the show was improperly edited. In the years since these comments, he has repeatedly denied ever calling for the death of Rushdie or supporting the fatwa.[5][48]
[edit] 11 September attacks
Immediately following the 11 September 2001, attacks on the United States, he said:
I wish to express my heartfelt horror at the indiscriminate terrorist attacks committed against innocent people of the United States yesterday. While it is still not clear who carried out the attack, it must be stated that no right-thinking follower of Islam could possibly condone such an action. The Qur'an equates the murder of one innocent person with the murder of the whole of humanity. 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.[56][57]
He appeared on videotape on a VH1 pre-show for the October 2001 Concert for New York City, condemning the attacks and singing his song "Peace Train" for the first time in public in more than 20 years, as an a cappella version. He also donated a portion of his box-set royalties to the Fund for victims' families, and the rest to orphans in underdeveloped countries.[58] During the same year, Yusuf Islam dedicated time and effort in joining the Forum Against Islamophobia and Racism, an organization that worked towards battling misperceptions and acts against others because of their religious beliefs and/or racial identity, after many Muslims reported a backlash against them due in part to the grief caused by the events in the United States on 9-11.[44]
[edit] Denial of entry into the United States
On 21 September 2004, Yusuf was on a United Airlines flight from London to Washington, travelling to a meeting with singer Dolly Parton, who had recorded "Peace Train" several years earlier and was planning to include another Cat Stevens song on an upcoming album.[47] 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 United States Transportation Security Administration, which then diverted his flight to Bangor, Maine, where he was detained by agents from the Department of Homeland Security.[59]
The following day, Yusuf was deported back to the United Kingdom. The Transportation Security Administration claimed there were "concerns of ties he may have to potential terrorist-related activities".[60] The Israeli government had deported Yusuf in 2000 over allegations that he provided funding to the Palestinian organisation Hamas;[61] he denied doing so knowingly.[62] "I have never knowingly supported or given money to Hamas," says Yusuf, who repeatedly has condemned terrorism and Islamic extremism.[63] "At the time I was reported to have done it, I didn't know such a group existed. Some people give a political interpretation to charity. We were horrified at how people were suffering in the Holy Land."[62] However, the United States Department of Homeland Security added him to their FBI watchlist.[14] The US deportation provoked a small international controversy, and led British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw to complain personally to US Secretary of State Colin Powell at the United Nations.[64] Powell responded by stating that the watchlist was under review, adding, "I think we have that obligation to review these matters to see if we are right".[65]
Yusuf believed his inclusion on the watch list may have simply been an error: a mistaken identification of him for a man with the same name, but different spelling. On 1 October 2004 Yusuf requested the removal of his name, "I remain bewildered by the decision of the US authorities to refuse me entry to the United States".[66] According to a statement by Yusuf, the man on the list was named "Youssef Islam", indicating that Yusuf himself was not the suspected terrorism supporter.[9] Romanization of Arabic names can easily result in different spellings: the transliteration of the Islamic name for Joseph (Yusuf's chosen name) lists a dozen spellings.
Two years later, in December 2006, Yusuf was admitted without incident into the United States for several radio concert performances and interviews to promote his new record.[67] Yusuf said of the incident at the time, that, "No reason was ever given, but being asked to repeat the spelling of my name again and again, made me think it was a fairly simple mistake of identity. Rumors which circulated after made me imagine otherwise."[68]
Yusuf has written a song about the 2004 deportation experience, entitled "Boots and Sand", recorded in the summer of 2008 and featuring Paul McCartney, Alison Krauss, Dolly Parton, and Terry Sylvester.[69]
[edit] Libel cases
[edit] British reports regarding deportation
In October 2004 the British newspapers The Sun and The Sunday Times voiced their support for Yusuf's deportation by the US government, claiming that he had supported terrorism. Yusuf successfully sued for libel and received a substantial out-of-court financial settlement and apologies from the newspapers stating that he had never supported terrorism and acknowledging that he had recently been given a Man of Peace award from the private Nobel Peace Prize Laureates Committee. However The Sunday Times managing editor Richard Caseby said that while there was an "agreed settlement", they "always denied liability" and "disagreed with Cat Stevens' lawyers interpretation", but took a "pragmatic view" of the lawsuit.[70]
Yusuf 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", and added that he intended to donate the financial award given to him by the court to help orphans of the tsunami in the Indian Ocean.[70]
Yusuf wrote about the experience in a newspaper article titled "A Cat in a Wild World".[71]
[edit] False rumour regarding veiled women
On 18 July 2008, Yusuf received substantial undisclosed damages from the World Entertainment News Network following their distribution of the false rumour that the singer did not speak to unveiled women.[72] The allegations first surfaced in German newspaper B.Z. after Yusuf's trip to Berlin in March 2007 to collect the Echo music award for "life achievements as musician and ambassador between cultures".[73] Once again he was awarded damages after the World Entertainment News Network allowed an article to be published on Contactmusic.com, a "website said to have 2.2 million page views a month",[72] alleging that Yusuf would not speak to unveiled women with the exception of his wife. His solicitor was reported as having said that "he was made out to be 'so sexist and bigoted that he refused at an awards ceremony to speak to or even acknowledge any women who were not wearing a veil'".[72][74] The offending news agency apologized, admitting that Yusuf has never had any problem in working with women and, contrary to the article in question, never has needed a third party as an intermediary to function at work.[73] The money from this lawsuit will go to Yusuf's Small Kindness Charity.[72]
Yusuf himself discusses this topic on his website, saying, "It’s true that I have asked my manager to respectfully request lady presenters refrain from embracing me when giving awards or during public appearances, but that has nothing to do with my feelings or respect for them. Islam simply requires me to honour the dignity of ladies or young girls who are not closely related to me, and avoid physical intimacy, however innocent it may be." He adds, "My four daughters all follow the basic wearing of clothes which modestly cover their God-given beauty. They’re extremely well educated; they do not cover their faces and interact perfectly well with friends and society."[citation needed