I've returned to being an amateur without any ties or strings attached, which gives me a freedom I never had before.

After embracing Islam in 1977, I considered the majority of underprivileged dark-skinned people of the so-called Third World brothers and sisters in humanity.

The spiritual quest was always the predominant aspect of my life. It's always been there. But there's also an incredible passion connected to it; it's not just a dry investigative process. I have been extremely emotional about it, and that comes out in the songs.

I 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.

I 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.

Salman Rushdie, indeed any writer who abuses the prophet or indeed any prophet under Islamic law, the sentence for that is actually death.

Love heats my blood, blood spins my head, and my head falls in love.