As we screech into another new year, I am having to grapple with the fact that many youngsters have never even heard the Beatles song, Yesterday. It’s an ominous sign of age creeping up and reminding you of your own mortality.
If that’s the case, how much hope can we bank on to imagine they would know that there once really was a guy called Cat Stevens who dreamt of transporting his generation to a better world with a song called Peace Train? Hearing anything more about this old "Cat" becomes even more remote when you realise that he decided to embrace Islam in 1977, when none of these kids were even born.
The next major ponderable impossibility would be for them to have been given enough accurate information about why he decided to jump off the friendly choo-choo and align himself to what is portrayed by some in the West as a religion that is hellbent on their destruction. How can we solve this paradox as we observe the blood-chilling news connected to the name of the faith he adopted as his own – Yusuf Islam?
Listening more closely to the "Cat" and his songs of the 1970s might have partially solved the riddle. When he stunned the music world by walking away from fame and money, all you had to do was to listen to Father & Son to hear the last words of the song say, “There’s a way and I know, that I have to go – away ...” But that still doesn’t really explain why.
Here comes the explanation: what people don’t know is that the actual station at which the earnest peace-seeking singer alighted, was in fact hundreds of light-years away from the [wild] world that sprouted around him following his entrance to Islam. After having reached the peaceful state of submission to God, emptying his ego and bowing his head, learning to pray and fast, it was only one year after his conversion when the Iranian Revolution suddenly shook the planet. This was followed soon after by the war in Afghanistan, the first Intifada, the Iran-Iraq War, The Satanic Verses publication, the Bosnian Genocide, the list of tragedies rolled on through to the September 11 attacks and up to the crisis we are facing today with the arrival of ISIL.
Now for the good news: having just attended the Reviving The Islamic Spirit Convention in Toronto, it was perhaps one of the most exhilarating reminders of the wonderful faith I had embraced before the negative storm of propaganda against Islam began to hail down upon us. Unfortunately, very few people know or have access to the teachings of this faith as so much attention is paid to the more radicalised elements of the Muslim community and receive an unfair percentage of the media’s valuable space.
Although Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister, sent a video message of support to the event, there was hardly any other blip on the media's radar. Shame. It was truly refreshing listening again to some of the inspiring speeches of the scholars of this religion. But the metaphysical mountain of knowledge and wisdom of the scholars of the human heart are hardly seen or heard.
Belief ultimately should lead a person to be the most humane and chartable; the Last Prophet Mohammed said: “He is not a believer who goes to sleep while his belly is full while his neighbour goes hungry.” He also prophesied that there would be extremists of faith whose “words go no further than their throats”. The name given to radicals in Muslim history has always been the same: outsiders (khawarij). The Prophet maintained that the best of affairs lies in the "middlemost" of it, calling for justice, balance and moderation. And this was exactly what the convention was inviting to:the necessity of an “alliance of virtue”.
It is high time that the good people of the world, from all faiths and denominations work together to benefit mankind, through knowledge and good actions. The centre is where we can all meet; a place where we can stand high above the chaos caused by religious radicals and soldiers of destruction. One of the memorable sayings of a famous Muslim mystic, Rumi, comes to mind here: “Out beyond the ideas of wrong and right there is a field ... I’ll meet you there.” In that spirit, the words of my old anthem Peace Train also resonate: "Get your bags together / Go bring your good friends too / Cause it’s getting nearer / It soon will be with you.”
Call me Cat or Yusuf, I am an optimist – a believer cannot be anything else. Until that great train arrives, I hope that the new year will truly be one in which we can commit to our common humanity, and practice the heavenly teachings of true teachers and guides, many of whom I was honoured to meet in Toronto. Peace be with you.
Yusuf Islam, formerly known as Cat Stevens, is a singer, songwriter and philanthropist
