A person who steals bread during a famine is not treated as a thief.
Cat Stevens

All things can be forgiven if we can progress.
Cat Stevens

Because I don't play guitar any more, African harmonies and rhythms have been an inspiration to me. I love the raw origin of the sound. It complements my voice and words naturally.
Cat Stevens

Communal well-being is central to human life.
Cat Stevens

Ever since I became a Muslim, I've had to deal with attempts to damage my reputation and countless insinuations seeking to cast doubt on my character and trying to connect me to causes which I do not subscribe to.
Cat Stevens

Everything I do is for the pleasure of Allah.
Cat Stevens

I always knew looking back on my tears would bring me laughter, but I never knew looking back on my laughter would make me cry.
Cat Stevens

I 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 Stevens

I 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 Stevens

I 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 Stevens


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.
Cat Stevens

I 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 Stevens

I looked at some of the statues of Jesus; they were just stones with no life. When they said that God is three, I was puzzled even more but could not argue. I believed it, simply because I had to have respect for the faith of my parents.
Cat Stevens

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.
Cat Stevens

I was brought up in the modern world of all the luxury and the highlight of show business. I was born into a Christian home.
Cat Stevens

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

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.
Cat Stevens

If 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 Stevens

In 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 Stevens

In the early days I had a very black-and-white view of everything.
Cat Stevens