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Yusef
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handofdave
handofdave
3515 posts

Edited Nov 21, 2008, 14:05
Re: Yusef
Nov 21, 2008, 13:42
elegant chaos wrote:
it still sticks in my craw when he backed the fatwah on Salman Rushdie - and I back 10,000 Maniacs' decision to withdraw "Peace Train" from their album for that reason


Oh, that irked the hell out of me... and it was not addressed in the interview. I think that whole fatwah support business of his was due to his somehow having to prove something to Islam.... converts to any religion invest a particulary intense amount of adherance to the orthodoxy, that most who were raised in the faith don't. And even when he was Cat Stevens he most definitely was on some sort of quest towards a devotional life... Islam's got devotion with a capital D.

He seems to have mellowed out... the return to the music is a good sign.. it's more Sufi and less Wahhabi, if you know what I mean. He was earnest and sincere but good humored in the interview, even joking about the time the US Department of Homeland Security forced his plane to land and took him and his daughter into custody... (the agents all asked for his autograph). He seems like a pretty clearheaded family guy, perhaps a bit preoccupied with the life after death question (he admitted that was the impetus to convert).

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