I 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.

Music satisfies and nourishes the hunger within ourselves for connection and harmony.

I've studied various schools of thought ... I acknowledge that some Muslims consider music prohibited, but I've found a lot of evidence from the life of the Prophet to show that he allowed certainly, but even encouraged, music at certain times ...

All 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.

It's very difficult to ignore humanitarian disasters. The royalties from my albums continue to support my charity work.

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

The latest horror to hit the U.S. looks to have been caused by people of Middle Eastern origin, bearing Muslim names. Again, shame. This fuels more hatred for a religion and a people who have nothing to do with these events.