Peace Train

Cat Stevens is often revered because he left his career to seek a higher moral plane by becoming a devout Muslim.

He was a major recording artist as a teenager who "wanted to live larger than life and the only way to do that was to be intoxicated."  After a year of the high life he suffered tuberculosis, a collapsed lung and nearly died.  During convalescence he pondered spirituality and ventured into meditation, yoga, metaphysics, "peace and flower power," Buddhism, Zen, Ching, numerology, tarot cards and astrology.  He "tried to look back into the Bible and could not find anything."

Stevens attended a parochial elementary school.  He was successful in art but did poorly in academic subjects, which may explain his flawed understanding of Christianity.  He said "I was taught that ... there was no direct contact with God, so we had to make contact with Him through Jesus - he was in fact the door to God.  When they said that God is three, I was puzzled."  He became "fed up with Christianity."

On vacation in Morocco he heard the Islamic call to prayer and was told it was "music for God."  Stevens said "I thought, music for God?  I'd heard of music for money, music for fame, music for personal power, but music for God!"  He apparently forgot he had recorded the Christian hymn Morning Has Broken in 1971 and it hit #6 on the charts.

He converted to Islam in 1977, taking the name "Yusuf Islam" and stating "Now I realize I can get in direct contact with God, unlike Christianity.  I read the Qur'an and realized that no person is perfect.  Islam is perfect, and if we imitate the conduct of the Holy Prophet we will be successful."

His adherence has created difficulties.  He was once interviewed on the BBC regarding Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa to execute author Salmon Rushdie.

Interviewer:  "Would you go to a demonstration where you knew (Rushdie's) effigy was going to be burned?"
Yusuf:  "I would have hoped for the real thing."

On the other hand, he allowed his first performance of "Peace Train" in 20 years to be shown on videotape at an October, 2001 concert condemning the 9/11 attacks.  It was sung a cappella because he had given up his guitar, thinking that playing it was against Islam.  He had also previously refused to sing in English.  Revising his views, he noted "The Qur'an does not ever actually mention the words "music" or "instruments."  Yusuf says he "relied on heresy."  Now he's strumming and singing in English on tour.

Now I've been crying lately,
thinking about the world as it is
Why must we go on hating,
why can't we live in bliss.

Cause out on the edge of darkness,
there rides a peace train
Oh peace train take this country,
come take me home again
                   -Peace Train, Cat Stevens

If he ever grasps an understanding of Christianity and fairly compares it to Islam, Yusuf may discover the peace train's engineer is a Christian.

References for quotations are available by emailing cwgalaska@triadpress.us

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