The fact that the Prophet cared for every human being and tried his best to ensure their security in the hereafter must be the most telling of his compassionate and merciful characteristics.
Cat StevensIf you want to sing out, sing out, and if you want to be free, be free, cause there's a million ways to be, you know that there are.
Cat StevensIn a World where people are surrounded by darkness, ignorance and fear, it is a sign of hope to be celebrating Islam's message of peace and light, and the last great Messenger, born and chosen to deliver them to all mankind.
Cat StevensI became very famous, as a teenager, and my name and photo were splashed in all the media. They made me larger than life, so I wanted to live larger than life, and the only way to do that was to be intoxicated.
Cat StevensIn those days a concert was a personal experience. I wanted to be as close as possible to the audience and of course big stadiums didn't enable you to do that. It wasn't my style.
Cat StevensPositive thoughts and prayer have been the best means available, since the beginning of time, to transform darkness to light.
Cat StevensI remember when I was a kid, when I just used to love listening to something again and again and over and over. You know, everybody else got sick of it, but I loved that discovery of music and what it did to my world, to my imagination. And so I started really considering, "Yeah, I've got to do more," for kids, particularly.
Cat StevensIt's very difficult to ignore humanitarian disasters. The royalties from my albums continue to support my charity work.
Cat StevensThere's a common threat facing all of us - Christians, Jews, and Muslims - and that is the Antichrist. It's a very deep subject, and it's a horrendous thing to contemplate. Someone will appear who is, in fact, the opposite of what he appears to be. Some people will believe in him, and that's really frightening. In Islam, there's a belief that Jesus will return to destroy the Antichrist, which is something many people don't know about the Islamic faith.
Cat StevensMan may live and man may die searching for the question why. But if he tries to rule the sky, he must fall.
Cat StevensKnowledge is a thing you can carry around with you, but you may not apply it. Some knowledge is indiscriminate, and it can be damaging. I recently found a wonderful definition of wisdom: It is that thing which results in the maximum good and the least harm.
Cat StevensAll the songs that were written for that album are just all our first sophomore songs. So they're all from real life. Very sweet and very innocent. I think the theme of the album probably was just that it was our first record. ... Back when we were first making records, you didn't just make the music, you put a great deal of energy into the way it looked, and every word that was written on the whole thing.
Cat StevensI suppose that the media and their portrayal of Islam and the almost tribal separations and divisions of the Muslims are the greatest issues confronting Muslims in the United Kingdom.
Cat StevensI think I will just use guitar as backing. I'm not doing a traditional folk thing, but a contemporary thing-my own version of folk, if you like.
Cat StevensThere was no division I could see between the essential teaching of all Prophets and wise men of religion.
Cat StevensBeing larger than life, or being projected as such in the music business, leads you to question yourself. Some people try to forget about it by taking drugs or too much drink, but I was never like that. I was aware that there were very serious, big questions, and I was petrified about what might be in store for me.
Cat StevensWhen many astronauts go to space, they see the insignificant size of the earth and vastness of space, and they become very religious, because they have seen the Signs of Allah.
Cat StevensA lot of people would have loved me to keep singing... You come to a point where you have sung, more or less... your whole repertoire and you want to get down to the job of living.
Cat StevensI am confident that, in the end, common sense and justice will prevail. I'm an optimist, brought up on the belief that if you wait to the end of the story, you get to see the good people live happily ever after.
Cat StevensSalman Rushdie, indeed any writer who abuses the prophet or indeed any prophet under Islamic law, the sentence for that is actually death.
Cat StevensIt was important for me to duck out of the fast and furious life I'd been living as a pop star. I was in a different mood.
Cat StevensI always stood for the elimination of conflict and wars, and any of those causes that ignite them.
Cat StevensViolence is almost an everyday occurrence in some Muslim lands: it should not be exacerbated by revenge attacks on more innocent families and communities.
Cat StevensIn the early days I had a very black-and-white view of everything. I think that's kind of natural for anyone who's just embraced Islam - or any religion - as a convert. It was important for me to duck out of the fast and furious life I'd been living as a pop star. I was in a different mood.
Cat StevensAfter embracing Islam in 1977, I considered the majority of underprivileged dark-skinned people of the so-called Third World brothers and sisters in humanity.
Cat StevensThe verses talked about other Prophets as brothers preaching the same unifying script of mankind, showing every man and woman the way to Paradise. I saw the names of Jesus, of Moses, of Abraham, of Jacob, of Noah and of course, crucially, the name of this last messenger, the last Messenger of God, Muhammad.
Cat StevensI found a religion that blended scientific reason with spiritual reality in a unifying faith far removed from the headlines of violence, destruction and terrorism.
Cat StevensI tried Zen and Ching, numerology, tarot cards and astrology. I tried to look back into the Bible, and could not find anything. At this time I did not know anything about Islam, and then, what I regarded as a miracle occurred. My brother had visited the mosque in Jerusalem, and was greatly impressed that while on the one hand it throbbed with life.
Cat StevensI 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.
Cat StevensModeration is part of faith, so those who accuse Muslim schools of fostering fanaticism should learn a bit more about Islam.
Cat StevensGod has decided the rules of life, whereby you don't trespass on anybody else's rights, and sin is something that upsets the balance of things. There are three types of sin: sin against yourself; sin against other people; and sin against God. People often sin against themselves and others and misbehave with God, too.
Cat StevensI did not come into contact with any Muslim before I embraced Islam. I read the Qur'an first and realized no person is perfect, Islam is perfect, and if we imitate the conduct of the Holy Prophet... we will be successful.
Cat Stevens