Yusuf Islam, formerly Cat Stevens, formerly Stephen Georgiou, was denied entry to the United States and returned to London:
He [Cat Stevens / Yusuf Islam] was widely reported to have endorsed the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeni’s 1989 decree calling for the death of British novelist Salman Rushdie after Khomeni said Rushdie’s novel, “The Satanic Verses,” was blasphemous.
But Islam has said his comments were taken out of context by a reporter, and that he opposed anyone “taking the law into their own hands.”
Here’s what I remember of the Salman Rushdie “Satanic Verses” incident (15 years after the fact): After Khomeini issued a fatwa against Salman Rushdie and ordered Muslims to kill him, some reporters asked Stevens about the death sentence. Yusuf Islam’s response was something like this: “Well, blasphemy against the Koran is a very serious matter. I acknowledge the authority of Muslim religious leaders, and in principle I support their decrees.” The headlines the next day read:
Cat Stevens Says Rushdie Must Die
Of course Stevens hit the roof when he read the newspaper, and he angrily called a press conference. He said his comments had been taken out of context, that his position had been exaggerated, and so on.
I think he deserved it. One does not equivocate and give vague statements of implicit support when death sentences are issued publicly against authors of books. Either Khomeini is an out-of-control theocratic idiot or he’s a revered Imam of the true Islamic faith. Khomeni didn’t leave us with many choices in the middle.
Yusuf Islam seems to have learned his lesson: “He also condemned the recent attack on a school in the southern Russian town of Beslan that killed more than 300 people, many of them children.” Good for him. Maybe he’ll donate money or blood to help them.
By the way, nobody claims that Cat Stevens is a terrorist, despite the disingenuous remarks by him and some American Muslims like Ibrahim Hooper (spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations). The complaint is that some of the charities he supports may be funneling money toward non-charitable causes that support terrorism.
Here’s some more background on the creator of “Tea for the Tillerman”
