Category: Cat Stevens

Music can be healing, and with my history and my knowledge of both sides of what looks like a gigantic divide in the world, I feel I can point a way forward to our common humanity again.

I’ve studied various schools of thought… I acknowledge that some Muslims consider music prohibited, but I’ve found a lot of evidence from the life of the Prophet to show that he allowed certainly, but even encouraged, music at certain times.

I suppose that by being absent from the music business, it appeared that I just dropped out, but really I never did. I was continuously working and doing various things.

I became alienated from this religious upbringing, and started making music. I wanted to be a big star. All those things I saw in the films and on the media took hold of me, and perhaps I thought this was my god: the goal of making money.

Music is part of God’s universe.

I had to learn my faith and look after my family, and I had to make priorities. But now I’ve done it all and there’s a little space for me to fill in the universe of music again.

Music is a lady that I still love because she gives me the air that I breathe. We need all sorts of nourishment. And music satisfies and nourishes the hunger within ourselves for connection and harmony.