Cat stevens sami yusuf biography

Yusuf Islam, formerly Cat Stevens, is a British Muslim chanter born on 21 July 1948.

Virtuoso of many instruments, singer-songwriter, Yusuf Islam was first known by his former stage name Cat Stevens. He was also prominent for his conversion to Islam at the peak of his artistic career in 1976.

Following his conversion, Yusuf Islam gave up his career as pop star and devoted himself to philanthropic and educational causes in the Muslim communities. He founded numerous Islamic schools like Islamic Primary School in 1981 and vowed his fortune to promote Islamic education and charitable actions.

Yusuf Islam’s return to the public spotlight was in 1985, at the Live Aid concert dedicated to Ethiopian children. For several years, accompanied solely by drums and percussive instruments, Yusuf only sang lyrics about Islamic themes. Later, his experience with Raihan group on “God Is the Light” introduced him to nasheed’s style. In 2000, Yusuf wrote and produced a children's album “A Is for Allah”. Later on, albums succeeded and Yusuf Islam gave performances in many countries. The latest was at the Peace One Day concert at the Royal Albert Hall on September 21, 2007.

Yusuf Islam is married to Fauzia Mubarak Ali since September 1979 and has five children.

British musician (born 1948)

Musical artist

Yusuf Islam (born Steven Demetre Georgiou; 21 July 1948), commonly known by his stage names Cat Stevens, Yusuf, and Yusuf / Cat Stevens, is a British singer-songwriter and musician. He has sold more than 100 million records and has more than two billion streams. His musical style consists of folk, rock, pop, and, later in his career, Islamic music. Following two decades in which he performed only music which met strict religious standards, he returned to making secular music in 2006. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014. He has received two honorary doctorates and awards for promoting peace as well as other humanitarian awards.

His 1967 debut album and its title song "Matthew and Son" both reached top 10 in the UK charts. Stevens' albums Tea for the Tillerman (1970) and Teaser and the Firecat (1971) were certified triple platinum in the US. His 1972 album Catch Bull at Four went to No. 1 on the US Billboard 200 and spent weeks at the top of several other major charts. He earned ASCAP songwriting awards in 2005 and 2006 for "The First Cut Is the Deepest", which has been a hit for four artists. His other hit songs include "Father and Son", "Wild World", "Moonshadow", "Peace Train", and "Morning Has Broken".

Stevens converted

Yusuf Islam (born 21 July 1948) is an Englishsinger. He sang many of his early songs when he called himself Cat Stevens. He was born as Stephen-Demetre Georgiou to a Swedish mother and GreekCypriot father. He became a Muslim in 1977. After two years, he took the name of Yusuf İslam. He has sold over 60 million albums around the world since the late 1960s as Cat Stevens or Yusuf İslam.

As a waiter in his father’s cafe, he began writing songs "to escape the mundanity of it all". Chart success was followed by adulation, touring, drug use, confusion, tuberculosis and, in the early 1970s, Islam's changed outlook and an album called Tea For The Tillerman.

Stevens nearly drowned in an accident in Malibu in 1975. Stevens described the event in a VH1 interview some years later: "I suddenly held myself and I said, 'Oh God! If you save me, I'll work for you.'" He had looked into Buddhism; Zen and I Ching, numerology, tarot cards and astrology", but when his brother David gave him a copy of the Qur’an, Stevens began to convert to Islam.

In year 1977 he changed his name to Yusuf Islam upon becoming a Muslim. He stopped playing and recording pop music for almost 3

Cat Stevens became a convert to Islam in 1977, after a near-death experience. He adopted the name Yusuf Islam in 1979, and became an outspoken advocate for the religion.
Recently in Nov. 2006, his first pop album after 28 years, "An Other Cup", was released under the name Yusuf.
He currently lives in London with his wife and children, where he is an active member of the Muslim community.
Following Ayatollah Khomeini's February 14, 1989 death fatwa against author Salman Rushdie, he made statements that were interpreted as endorsing the killing of Rushdie. This generated a furor among a number of celebrities and free-speech activists in the West who spoke out about his comments on radio stations and newspaper editorials. 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."
He founded, and is 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. Islam also founded the charity Muslim Aid, but left as founding Chairman in 1999.