Earlier today, Yusuf Islam, the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens, whom you may remember from such 1970s hits as “Peace Train” and “The First Cut is the Deepest” appeared at Jon Stewart’s “Rally to Restore Sanity.” Mediaite has the video of his appearance there, and notes:
Wow. The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear just had a Battle of the Bands between Yusuf Islam (also known as Cat Stevens and Ozzy Osbourne. The ‘pro-sanity” part of the rally (lead by Jon Stewart) introduced Mr. Islam who sang “Peace Train,” only to be interrupted by Stephen Colbert (the ‘pro-fear’ part of the rally) who proceeded to introduce a surprisingly lucid Mr. Osbourne who sang “Crazy Train.” The battle was effectively a draw, only to be resolved by a surprise appearance by the O’Jays who sang “Love Train.” And the world began to heal.The inclusion of Yusuf Islam in the Rally to Restore Sanity is sure to raise a number of eyebrows, given the controversy surrounding his alleged support of the fundamentalist Islamic fatwa against author Salman Rushdie. As Andy Levy tweeted “Rally To Restore Fatwas?” Yusuf has since asserted that he was simply joking and his comments were taken out of context. In the years that has followed, he has repeatedly denied ever calling for the death of Rushdie or supporting the fatwa.
Hmmm. The peace train certainly seemed very much off the tracks in 1989, when he discussed Rushdie on a BBC roundtable discussion show called Hypotheticals.
At least at the moment, Wikipedia has a pretty good page on how the interview went:
On February 21, 1989, Yusuf Islam addressed students at Kingston University in London about his conversion to Islam and was asked about the controversy in the Muslim world and the fatwa calling for Salman Rushdie’s execution. He replied, “He must be killed. The Qur’an makes it clear – if someone defames the prophet, then he must die.” [5]
Newspapers quickly denounced what was seen as Yusuf Islam’s support for the assassination of Rushdie and the next day Yusuf released a statement saying that he was not personally encouraging anybody to be a vigilante,[1] and that he was only stating that blasphemy is a capital offense according to the Qur’an.
However on March 8, 1989, while speaking in London’s Regents Park Mosque, Yusuf Islam was asked by a Christian Science Monitor reporter how he would “cope with the idea of killing a writer for writing a book.” He is reported to have replied:
In Islam there is a line between let’s say freedom and the line which is then transgressed into immorality and irresponsibility and I think as far as this writer is concerned, unfortunately, he has been irresponsible with his freedom of speech. Salman Rushdie or indeed any writer who abuses the prophet, or indeed any prophet, under Islamic law, the sentence for that is actually death. It’s got to be seen as a deterrent, so that other people should not commit the same mistake again.
Two months later Yusuf Islam appeared on a British television program, BBC’s Hypotheticals, an occasional broadcast which featured a panel of notable guests to explore a hypothetical situation with moral, ethical and/or political dilemmas. In the episode, (“A Satanic Scenario”) Stevens/Islam is recorded having this exchange with moderator and Queens Counsel Geoffrey Robertson:[6][7]
Robertson: You don’t think that this man deserves to die?
Y. Islam: Who, Salman Rushdie?
Robertson: Yes.
Y. Islam: Yes, yes.
Robertson: And do you have a duty to be his executioner?
Y. Islam: Uh, no, not necessarily, unless we were in an Islamic state and I was ordered by a judge or by the authority to carry out such an act – perhaps, yes.
[Some minutes later, Robertson on the subject of a protest where an effigy of the author is to be burned]
Robertson: Would you be part of that protest, Yusuf Islam, would you go to a demonstration where you knew that an effigy was going to be burned?
Y. Islam: I would have hoped that it’d be the real thingThe New York Times also reports this statement from the program: [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.[8]
The content of the broadcast was reported in the New York Times on May 23, 1989,[8] a week before the show’s planned airing. He and other Muslim participants “objected to cuts” that “omitted the Muslim justification for punishment of blasphemy.
The above video appeared on YouTube in late 2007, which is when I snagged it, assuming it would be relevant again. And thanks to Jon Stewart…it is.
Update: Ed Morrissey adds:
What I find amazing about this is that two stars from Comedy Central would share the stage with a man who supported the idea of murdering an artist for his remarks on Islam. The producers of South Park got death threats from radical Muslims for attempting to depict an image of Muhammed in one of their recent episodes, and the executive management of Viacom forced them to censor the show in fear of Muslim reaction. Now, two of Viacom’s most recognizable television stars have linked themselves to a man who publicly endorsed that exact kind of threat — as a way to “restore sanity.”
Earlier, I guessed that the rally would just be a waste of time. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert managed to turn it into a despicable, offensive embarrassment. Isn’t that … ironic?
Earlier today, Wyatt Andrews of CBS’s Morning Show told the Tiffany Network’s cocooned viewers:
Stewart and Colbert actually have a permit for 60,000 people to rally for sanity and/or fear. So [far], who’s appearing on the stage today is still part secret, but we’re told it’s going to be entertainers and not politicians. Who’s actually coming to this rally? Almost all of the folks we found said they hope it’s about the moderates of America.
Phew! I’d hate to see what it would have looked like if any extremists took the stage.
Update: Welcome readers clicking in from:
- Atlas Shrugs
- Big Hollywood
- Bookworm Room
- Glenn Beck’s The Blaze
- Hot Air
- Instapundit
- London Telegraph
- Michelle Malkin
- Cliff May, National Review Online
- Kathleen McKinley of the Houston Chronicle
- Michael Moynihan of Reason
- Patterico
- Power Line
- Roger L. Simon
- Solomonia
- Jim Treacher
And the Pajamas homepage.
Hey, remember when Stewart CONDEMNED the use of threats to silence those who blaspheme Islam?
http://patterico.com/2010/10/30/wtf-islamofascist-at-the-rally-to-restore-sanity/
I have forgotten (or maybe never realized) how bad this actually was (on the Cat’s part); what a monster!
I more clearly remember the Objectivists (Peikoff in particular) having a letter in the NYT denouncing the absent response of the US-gov. And, here we are – decades later. Things have progressed, in the direction of the Ayatollahs.
It’s like you should nip these things in the bud or something.
Absolutely no one on the left supported Rushdie when he needed it most. No one. So all the breast-beating about their sacred principles is just so much white noise to me.
You may be right about the total lack of support from the Left. But I think Rushdie did get considerable support from classical liberals. Classical liberals are called “conservatives” now.
Save a copy of that Wiki page fast. The Ministry of Truth is going to be editing it.
I thought the jihadi/left had effectively “memory holed” this stuff. Thanks. Yusuf Islam -spit- still sucks. Peace Train indeed!
Side note on Cat Stevens, possibly interesting on several levels: One of his most popular songs, “Morning Has Broken’, features a melody Stevens did not write. That melody was lifted from a lesser-known Christmas carol/hymn known as ‘Child in a Manger’.
Religious irony aside, Stevens also appropriated an arrangement by Rick Wakeman for this same song. Wakeman was never credited for his work, and Stevens apparently did not credit the actual source of the melody until he, er, was found out. Today, the hymnal melody is credited – but Wakeman still is not. That’s because the hymn is public domain, while Wakeman, to date, has been paid all of $12, [Source: http://www.progressiveworld.net/wakeman4.html while the song made Stevens himself an overnight millionaire.
But of course, in publicly threatening to kill Rushdie, Stevens is demonstrating True Integrity. Direct your attention to his shawl, headwear and staged religiosity. This other stuff doesn’t count.
He didn’t write the words, either. He lifted Eleanor Farjeon’s hymn, published in 1931.
She set it to a traditional Gaelic tune known as “Bunessan”, which has also been used with the 19th century Christmas Carol “Child in the Manger”.
Did not realize that! I was only familiar with the Christmas carol version [A Child in a Manger], whose words are different. I assumed the hymn’s words were different as well – Stevens does take credit for the words in his song, after all, so I’d figured he changed them. Thanks for this.
The familiar piano arrangement on Stevens’ recording
was performed by Rick Wakeman, a classically trained keyboardist with the English progressive rock band Yes.
In 2000, Wakeman released an instrumental version of “Morning Has Broken” on an album of the same title. That same year he gave an interview on BBC Radio 5 Live in which he said he had agreed to perform on the Cat Stevens track for £10 and was “shattered” to be omitted from the credits, adding that he never received the money either.
Apparently where “Morning Has Broken” is concerned, all Cat Stevens had was a hymn which lasted around 45 seconds. Producer Paul Samwell-Smith told him he could never put something like that on an album, that it needed at least to be three minutes in length. Prior to the actual recording Stevens heard Wakeman play something in the recording booth. It was a rough sketch of what would later become “Catherine Howard”. Stevens told Wakeman that he liked it and wanted something similar as the opening section, the closing section and, if possible, a middle section as well. Wakeman told Stevens he could not as it was his piece destined for a solo album, but
Stevens persuaded him and got him as far as adapting his own composition.[4] The familiar piano intro and general structure of the piece may be attributed to Stevens or to Wakeman.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morning_Has_Broken
Well he and issue all the Fatwas he wants, American Pie was his best song. He has the right, I have the right not to pay any attention to his fatwas. I also have the right when he and his kind says to me convert or else, to insert a 172 Gr from a7.62 mm NATO(that is a 308 Winchester for those of you in Rio Linda) into the bridge of his nose. ( That would be between the eyes for those of you in Rio Linda) As I understand Rushdie is still living in hiding and with guards. Religion of Peace yea, right.
Uh, “American Pie” was Don McLean.
And I thought Rushdie was living in NYC without guards now…but I may be mistaken.
Thanks for putting the Rio Linda hater in her place, Jeffersonian.
Comedy Central and Stewart/Colbert either set the sanity bar pretty low or assumed that no one would remember Stevens/Islam panting to murder Rushdie. This is a top-shelf SNAFU that will overshadow any possible message put out.
I think most of the attendees were not born or were small children when this happened, and probably don’t know anything about the Rushdie fatwa at all. Remember our newest crop of voters were in 4th grade on September 11, 2001.
To Snitch: Incorrect. Christopher Hitchens, then well on the left, and his friend Susan Sontag, always well on the left, led the campaign to denounce both the fatwa and the anemic response to it by some members of the left, some members of the right, many cowardly writers, and the Bush administration. You may still find the pro-Rushdie petitions filled with many leftwing names. There are, of course, notorious absences, but you need to use the words “absolutely” and “no one” with more care.
Meanwhile, thanks to the linked video above there should be no weaseling left for defenders of the former Cat Stevens.
Well said. Credibility is important. Sontag descended into the dreadful and is now being judged by a higher power but on this issue she showed clarity.
Something about using Hitchens as an example of the left’s support of Rushdie reminded me of something I’d read. So I looked it up:
“His [Hitchens] departure from the established political left began in 1989 after what he called the “tepid reaction” of the European left following Ayatollah Khomeini’s issue of a fatwā calling for the murder of Salman Rushdie.” (source: Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Hitchens)
In other words, Hitchens broke from the left PRECISELY because of this very issue: The left’s lack of support for Rushdie.
Taylor definitely needs to choose his “examples” with more care. But I won’t hold my breath waiting.
(I can’t hold my breath anyway – too busy laughing.)
Christopher Hitchens has broken with the left, huh? Baloney. That was the second attempt to rehabilitate Hitchens that I’ve read on this website. The purpose of which is what? He is still as far to the left as his buddy Andrew Sullivan is, and both of them are still crackpots.
“Christopher Hitchens has broken with the left, huh? Baloney”
Wikipedia. And they cite sources they found credible. But I guess when you don’t hear what you want to hear, “baloney” constitutes a rebuttal. Sad.
Suffice to say, your ignorance is stunning. But ignorance is bliss, right? To which anyone who agrees with you will attest.
Taylor: I stand corrected, but you’re offering some pretty weak sauce. The fact that you have to invoke Hitchens, for example, merely demonstrates how supporting Rushdie was so at odds with ‘leftist principles’ that soon he would no longer count himself among their numbers (nor they he). Citing Hitchens as somehow typifying leftist support for Rushdie is quite a stretch.
Sontag, for her part, was an iconoclast on many issues. Another exception proving the rule. How many leftists, for example would have dared state the following:
“the left have willingly or unwillingly told a lot of lies… Communism is Fascism… Imagine, if you will, someone who read only the Reader’s Digest between 1950 and 1970, and someone in the same period who read only The Nation or [t]he New Statesman. Which reader would have been better informed about the realities of Communism? The answer, I think, should give us pause. Can it be that our enemies were right?”
That speech drew boos from the left – no surprise. So let’s not pretend Sontag’s support for Rushdie (which I admit I had forgotten about) was given more than lip service among a few of her friends.
Fact is, the only two names you could cite for leftist support of Rushdie are two of the worst examples of mainstream leftist thinking you could have found. Perhaps you need to choose your examples with more care, hmm?
Yes, I said ‘no one’. Mea culpa. I should have said ‘almost’ no one, or better yet, said ‘no MEANINGFUL support’ was offered by the left. It’s a comment section on a blog. I wrote in haste.
Do you also prove your points by finding spelling errors?
Wow, so you overlooked two out of tens of thousands Mr. Snitch. That means you’re still almost always right 99.98 percent of the time – a record that surpasses even Mr. Limbaugh’s.
None-too-swift Taylor’s excuse-making for Leftists reminds me of some soft-core commie campus punk who, when told that the fashionable Leftist crowd turned their heads and looked the other way as the Khmer Rouge murdered millions said, “Uh uh uh, what about Joan Baez?” as if her singular honesty had somehow redeemed every Leftist of said crime. The hard-core Left crucified her for speaking out, you know.
Yeah. The example that came to my mind was something like a black waiter working at a Klan meeting. The NAACP drops in, and the Grand Wizard points to him, crying, “Look! We’re integrated!”
(Before this guy shows up again: Yes, I KNOW the Klan would never hire a black waiter. He’d be as out of place as – well, Hitchens at a leftist rally.)
Shpellin errrurs er gest dishpikubel.
cat stevens is dead to me! and my kids have no idea who he is.
The copyright problem is probably BS. But perhaps removing the music from the video would eliminate even the slightest problem. That would make it suitable for wider distribution (hint, hint).
Actually, Nate, Stevens does have a rep for being a stickler for copyright. See my earlier comments re ‘Morning Has Broken’ – well, he would not let Wakeman play the song in any of his albums, even though Wakeman had contributed greatly to the song (and gotten only $15 for it). Wakeman eventually figured out that the TUNE, at least, was public domain, so he played it instrumentally on at least one album (which I have), without the words. (Only today did I learn that Stevens didn’t actually write the words, either, yet somehow got the song published under his name.)
I was a big Cat Stevens fan when I was in college, and I was well left too. Now I’m a retrograde Zionist, pro-settler, and Stevens thinks of me fondly as one of his future dead sons of pigs and monkeys. Meanwhile, the Israeli gov’t funnels money and aid to the Hamas-ruled Gaza, one of the Cat-man’s causes, and partly finances the rockets that come back over the border on Sderot and kibbutzim. While Barry Obama tries to send Hamas 900 million and has various links to the flotillas whose purpose, ultimately, is to help Hamas bomb Tel Aviv with all sorts of better weapons.
Yes, morning has broken. The forecast – mostly cloudy with a chances of shahidim and exploding printer cartridges. To hell with Stevens and with Islam.
I too was a big fan. He was lyrically and vocally one of the clearest voices ever. You could understand every word. Its just amazing that he could change sides, especially as theres a verse in the Koran that says singers should be killed or beaten or sued for plagiarism, or something like that.
do you think we could get cat to sing “peace train” to osama bin ladin
Ozzie Osbourne may have had the highest IQ at the rally today.
And here I thought Yusef Islam was still on the no-fly list – Wasn’t he on a US-bound flight that had to turn back to the UK a few years ago? – as well as the no-US entry list. Then again, Tariq Ramadan was once denied entry, but Hillary dropped that prohibition.
Jon Leibowitz Stewart (apparently just another self-hating Jew) invites the Rushdie Fatwa supporting idiot Yusaf Islam to his Restore Sanity gig. Heckuva job, dude.
“Absolutely no one on the left supported Rushdie when he needed it most. No one. So all the breast-beating about their sacred principles is just so much white noise to me.”
Nah, that’s just flat-out not true. I’m sure you’ll find people on the left who DIDN’T support him, but it’s false to say it was universal.
One of the current favorite scratching posts of conservatives around these parts – geoffrey robertson – provided rushie with a hideout. He didn’t stay with robertson all of the time, he didn’t stay anywhere all of the time, for obvious security reasons. But rushdie DID get genuine support from “the left”.
Because you read only what you want to, Matthew, and because I know you’ll come back to your own post, I’ll repost this:
“His [Hitchens] departure from the established political left began in 1989 after what he called the “tepid reaction” of the European left following Ayatollah Khomeini’s issue of a fatwā calling for the murder of Salman Rushdie.” (source: Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Hitchens)
Yes, the left offered lip service and token support. You want to pretend it was more than it was, well, I can’t stop you from lying. But Hitchens was there in the thick of it, and he knew better.
Speaking of geoffrey robertson ….
On this, I think PJM and I can agree. Yusuf’s comments on Hypothetical were appalling. I doubt he’s genuinely a violent person – I personally think he’s probably just an egotistical idiot. He SHOULD have come out immediately and retracted the comments, apologized and acknowledged his own stupidity. But he didn’t – he set out to try to (alternatively) minimize or justify what he’d said. I very much doubt that he found himself under any duress not to – I doubt that anyone in the muslim world particularly cared what he thought back then.
I still think he should apologize. Even now.
At times, during the battle of the bands, Stewart would order Cat, er Yusuf, to begin playing abruptly, which gave it a certain “Dance, monkey, dance!” flavor. That money might have changed hands for this ‘performance’ contributed to the feeling that it was fully on par with a carnival act. Carnivalnarianism. Islamic Fundamentalism.
Rushdie, if he were watching, had to fall out of his chair. May have died laughing.
Since I was in town, I couldn’t help but attend, and I had a ball trying to make subjects and predicates agree. I’m not saying these folks are stupid, but when they joke about peeing in their pants, I start to wonder. I also got a few funny looks when I started yelling, “is there as dentist in the house”? Not that their teeth were especially bad, but we were missing cartons of Listerine that would have made the whole event more shall I say tolerable.
I got into a bit of trouble, working on the O’Donnell campaign, when I started passing out two sides handouts, one side with Ahmadinejad’s photo and the other side my lasted ad for Christine.
Nobody really hassled me because I don’t think their eyes or brains could focus. Anyway,
here’s the ad.
A Rachel Peepers long form.
HEADLINE:
Regardless of what Coons may have learned in Kenya, U.S. soldiers aren’t murderers and baby killers.
COPY:
John Kerry learned that the hard way. But that’s the only way some people learn.
I hate to go back to that article Chris Coons wrote in his college newspaper (“the bearded Marxist” one) upon returning from keyna; the article choke-full of anti American sentiments, railing about America’s “faults and failures,” but when you’re running for the Senate (or the Presidency) the voting public should know if you’ve ever admitted in writing that you hate the red, white and blue.
My advice to Chris is that he stops repeating and writing and defining “America’s faults and failures” if he wants to get elected. When asked to clarify, Coons says he was joking in the headline but serious in the body copy. Which, in 14 years of writing, I’ve never heard of doing. Even the “NY Times Style Book” would discourage such a tact.
Unless you’re making a point.
Coons got into enough trouble with the fact that Harry Reid still calls Coons his pet. What an awful thing for any Delaware voter to believe. I can’t understand why Chris hasn’t denied it. Or did Coons think it was another joke?
To any taxpayer, though, the following isn’t funny.
The fact that Coons is on the record pledging to vote in favor of Obama’s Cap and Trade Bill which newspapers from Riverhead, LI, to Huntington Beach, California have pointed out will send energy prices through the roof bothers me to no end.
And completes the Coons pattern of raising taxes like rabbits raise families.
“Chris Coons, with his record of raising taxes has shown throughout his career that he would rather take orders and directives from Nancy Pelosi and Reid than do what’s right for Delaware and his country; the nation with all the “faults and failures” which, of course, appeared in that infamous Coons’ article.” (Delaware Spokesman, Thomas Doheny)
“Coons, 47, is the top executive of New Castle County, home to a majority of Delaware’s population. From a Republican perspective, there’s one really important thing to know about his time in office: In 2004, when Coons first ran for the job, he promised not to raise taxes. Since then he has raised taxes not once, not twice, but three times.
“Coons inherited a surplus. Celebrating victory on election night in 2004, he said his “top priority would be to continue balancing the budget without increasing property taxes,” according to an account in the local News Journal. Yet in 2006, he pushed through a 5 percent increase in property taxes. In 2007, he raised property taxes 17.5 percent. In 2009, he raised them another 25 percent.
“Coons wanted to raise other taxes, too. He proposed a hotel tax, a tax on paramedic services, even a tax on people who call 911 from cell phones.” (Byron York, Washington Examiner, 9/17/10)
Christine O’Donnell is on the side of small government and big economy. And that’s how she’ll vote. Better still, she’ll vote to repeal ObamaCare because she thinks there’s nothing funny about deep-sixing the best medical care in the world. Isn’t the United States a great country; it’s nothing short of the best country in the world. Regardless of the size of the smirk on the face of Chris Coons.
I recall Dennis Miller mentioning on his radio program a few years back of his feeling horrible when nobody on the Left had come to Stevens’s corner.
Including Miller himself who was a Liberal at the time.
CAT STEVENS
The man who found hate in the religion of peace and thinks it made him holy joined Jon Stewart at his sanity restoration rally. Go figure.
It looked to me, like a reunion of the first graduating class of Farouq U, complete with all the drop-outs.
I don’t know much about him, David. I think he is Greek-English. It’s my experience, without wishing to label all Greeks, that many are raised with a pretty deep anti-Semitism wired in. From reading a few pieces on Y-net about Turkish-Israel and Greek-Israel relations in the wake of Turkey’s move towards Islam, a number of talkbackers pointed out that Israelis should be cautious about the new ‘friendship’ with Greece because of this. Well, the alliance has its own rationale and dynamics, but I would guess this is part of his story. A higher percentage of Greek Jews died in the Shoah than from any other land. While I don’t know all the reasons for this, it seems as though deep anti-Semitism is one.
Another irony of history, given that Greece was one of the lands populated by Jews fleeing the Romans in those long-ago days.
Yusuf Islam has changed a lot since those days. He has evolved into a more moderate Muslim now. Back in those days, he believed that music was prohibited. He was influenced by the Wahhabi (Saudi) interpretation of Islam. Obviously he does not believe music is prohibited anymore and he is a different Muslim.
That’s all very good. But when you have called for a man’s murder, on the public airwaves, you have to do more than just stop saying that. You have to go in public and retract what you said. Yusuf Islam has not done that.
Got to read between the lines, Omri:
“he is a different Muslim” means “this is all in the past, stop bringing it up”
Of course, that means Stevens wasn’t held to account THEN and won’t be held accountable NOW, either. That’s a great precedent to set if you want to encourage irresponsibility.
Stevens, of course, knew full well what game he was playing. A man who was “different” today would set his shameful past right, not sweep it under the rug.
He could start by paying Wakeman, then work his way up to Rushdie…
For anyone like me who grew up with and admired Cat Stevens but now would not for his fat(wa)-headedness, I can recommend you to give a listen to Ben Harper.
Remember this?:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/09/22/plane.diverted.stevens/
Thanks for giving us a list of of places neocons and their Likudnik alies spread their propaganda on the internet.:
* Atlas Shrugs
* Big Hollywood
* Bookworm Room
* Glenn Beck’s The Blaze
* Hot Air
* Instapundit
* London Telegraph
* Michelle Malkin
* Michael Moynihan of Reason
* Patterico
* Power Line
* Roger L. Simon
* Solomonia
* Jim Treacher
Oh no, now I’m scared (whimper) . You’ve learned our stealth internet meeting places for conservative free speech (choke). I only wish that Driscoll had left that part of the column off; for now our secret is out. We’ve been been betrayed by one of our own (SOB)! And this after we had done such a good job keeping the names and urls of these websites under the radar.
Oh brother… get a grip will you!
Back in the later part of 1979, I was chatting with a roadie who had just gotten off the road with Cat Stevens, who at the time was probably the biggest act in the world. This was the era of the megalomaniacal rock stars, drug-soaked and trashers of hotel rooms. The roadie was kind of your stereotypical hard-drinkin’, cigarette smokin’, girl chasin’ wild man. I was interested to see what that experience was like, working for this musician who was just HUGE. After I asked him, the roadie, normally pretty animated got serious and quiet. He said that he didn’t know how Cat Stevens was going to stay in business ’cause he kept giving his money away. Incredulous, I thought “This guy is making zillions of dollars, are you pulling my leg?” He said ‘yeah Cat gives all the money he makes away and he treats everybody really, really well. He’s extremely nice to everyone on the tour. He’s just a great guy. I don’t see how he’s going to stay in business.’ That certainly was not the behavior expected of a mega rock star. Prima donna ego maniac was expected. The pressures of a world tour are certainly not conducive to philanthropic largesse and loving kindness. From that I guess I had a small inkling at the time that he was not destined to stay in the big time music business. I’d like to know more about these statements of Yusuf Islam and the context before passing judgment.
Classic moon god worship. I mean, religion of peace.
Well there is a great question…what made Cat Stevens go from being just a great guy to someone who is fine with killing you if you insult or don;t join his religion?
As per “A Muslim’s Response” above, Yusuf Islam has apparently backed off some of the more radical aspects of Islam. Just the fact that he was at the Stewart rally playing music when the more extreme form of Islam prohibits music would indicate that there has been some moderation of his views. In any case, I find the story of someone who was at the top of the world with all the adulation and money that entailed, just giving it all away and apparently going on some sort of spiritual pilgrimage, a compelling one. Reminiscent of Buddha or St. Francis albeit without the “kill the infidel” part, ha-ha. Can you imagine Lady Gaga all of a sudden chucking everything and disappearing into a convent? And if the intent of harping on Yusuf Islam being at the Stewart rally is to totally cancel Jon Stewart’s credibility with his call to “sanity” or a more moderate tone in our national discourse then I’d ask what is there that is so offensive about the concept of more moderation in the national dialogue? It’s a concept that really doesn’t hinge on you liking the person delivering the message or not. I mean if Jon Stewart was saying it’s good to help crippled children and Yusuf Islam came out to support that idea, what then? Are you going to say it’s NOT good to help crippled children? Is Tony Bennett’s patriotism or Kareem Abdul Jabbar’s for that matter now suspect because they shared the stage with Yusuf Islam?