It has been almost 30 years since Yusuf Islam became a Muslim, changed his name from Cat Stevens and announced that his career as a rock star was incompatible with his new religious beliefs. "My imam at the Central Mosque said there was no problem with making music," Islam tells me. "In fact, he encouraged me - he said if the songs are moral, not offensive, then go ahead."
Yusuf Islam has a pronounced cockney accent, which shouldn't be surprising given that he was born and raised in Soho, the son of a Greek Cypriot restaurateur, but somehow it is. "Then I heard another kind of voice saying this is a dangerous business, you should be away from it, all the associations that go along with that way of life, you should get away from. I just decided to take the safest position and get out."Instead, Islam entered into what he says was erroneously described as an arranged marriage - "I simply had two girls that I was, in a way, interested in marrying. I invited them home separately and asked my mother which one she thought I should marry and, by God, she was perfectly right."He started a family, devoted his time to charity work, the founding of three Muslim schools and, less successfully, an Islamic hotel that foundered due to the decision to open it in Willesden, an area of London hardly renowned for its massive influx of tourists, Muslim or otherwise. "Location, location, location," he sighs. Meanwhile, he found his position on music slowly shifting: "Of course, being in some way a kind of icon of a generation, where music played a fundamental part in growing up and development - turning away from that the way I did was a little bit harsh. As you age, and as you gain wisdom in life, you realise where you made mistakes."He hadn't touched a guitar for "a couple of decades" when he discovered that his son had brought one into the house and was writing songs on it. "I was a bit shocked, but what could I do? I wasn't convinced that it was wrong, but it was how it was going to be used." The discovery precipitated a gradual return to the music business. First there were a string of religious releases called things like A Is For Allah, and a handful of live appearances. Occasionally, for a good cause, he could be prevailed upon to belt out an a cappella rendition of his 1971 US top 10 hit Peace Train. Two years ago, there was a charity duet, alas with Ronan Keating, on a version of another old hit, Father And Son.Read more here..