Search Results: new songs

To forgive or not to forgive, that is the question. Read the details and VOTE BELOW!

Recently, I have been listening to Cat Stevens music from the olden days, stuff that was recorded years before his eventual conversion to Islam. Apparently he was involved in a controversy about saying an author of a book should die because of the book's blasphemous content. Because of this, some protested by boycotting his songs.

Click this link for more details on the controversy

Following Ayatollah Khomeini's February 14, 1989 "death fatwa" against author Salman Rushdie, after the publication of Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses, Yusuf Islam (previously known as Cat Stevens), made statements endorsing the killing of Rushdie. His statements generated criticism from commentators in the West.

In response, Yusuf Islam said that some of his comments were "stupid and offensive jokes" made in "bad taste."

In a 2000 Rolling Stone magazine interview:

I'm very sad that this seems to be the No. 1 question people want to discuss. I had nothing to do with the issue other than what the media created. I was innocently drawn into the whole controversy. So, after many years, I'm glad at least now that I have been given the opportunity to explain to the public and fans my side of the story in my own words. At a lecture, back in 1989, I was asked a question about blasphemy according to Islamic Law, I simply repeated the legal view according to my limited knowledge of the Scriptural texts, based directly on historical commentaries of the Qur'an. The next day the newspaper headlines read, "Cat Says, Kill Rushdie." I was abhorred, but what could I do? I was a new Muslim. If you ask a Bible student to quote the legal punishment of a person who commits blasphemy in the Bible, he would be dishonest if he didn't mention Leviticus 24:16