Yusuf: I never backed the order to kill Rushdie
POP star Cat Stevens never backed the fatwa against author Salman Rushdie and, after sensationally quitting the music industry, got back into it after realising it was not banned by the Koran, he reveals on Desert Island Discs today.
The Father And Son singer, who converted to Islam in 1977 and nd is now known asyusuf Islam, had ad been a global star when he quit after being told music may be prohibited.
Then, in 1989, it was suggested he condoned the killing of The Satanic
Verses author Rushdie following to the fatwa issued to Muslims by Ayatollah Khomeini.
But speaking on the Radio 4 show, Yusuf, 72, told host Lauren Laverne he had been misunderstood and insisted he only said the Commandments, which outlaw blasphemy, could not be rewritten.
He added: “I never, ever supported the fatwa. But the interesting thing is it brought me to study jurisprudence which again led me to realise that music, where you have certain rules dictated by certain scholars, you find out ‘no, hang on, this was an opinion’. This is all a fatwa is. It does not come directly from the Koran. So I found out about music and it started opening up again for me.”
The star, who racked up eight gold albums a and numerous hit singles, descr described playing again as “absolutely magical because having laid fallow for almost two decades, music was just flooding through me”. Choosing Nina Simone’s Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood as one of his tracks, he said: “It kind of speaks for itself because o of all the repercussions of m my inability to explain mys myself.” Reflecting on his life, he sai said: “When I became a Muslim I had another role to play – to try to bring peace between two very beautiful worlds.”
Yusuf also chose the tracks Twist and Shout by The Beatles, West Side Story’s America and As by Stevie Wonder. His luxury item was Bendicks Bittermints.
● Desert Island Discs, Radio 4, today, 11am