Time (thanks to Unhinged) contends that the whole Cat Stevens imbroglio comes down to a spelling error:
The Yusuf Islam incident earlier this week, in which the former Cat Stevens was denied entry into the U.S. when federal officials determined he was on the government's "no-fly" antiterror list, started with a simple spelling error. According to aviation sources with access to the list, there is no Yusuf Islam on the no-fly registry, though there is a "Youssouf Islam." The incorrect name was added to the register this summer, but because Islam's name is spelled "Yusuf" on his British passport, he was allowed to board a plane in London bound for the U.S. The Transportation Safety Administration alleges that Islam has links to terrorist groups, which he has denied; British foreign minister Jack Straw said the TSA action "should never have been taken."
Maybe this is so. After James Yee was arrested for mishandling classified documents and then prosecutors had to go back to determine whether or not they were really classified, and finally ended up dropping all charges, I am not surprised by federal incompetence. But was Yusuf Islam/Cat Stevens barred from Israel also for a spelling error? Or is there more to his case than DHS has yet made public? They still aren't talking.
UPDATE from The Guardian: The Cat is initiating legal action:
Yusuf Islam, the former pop star previously known as Cat Stevens, said today he had begun legal action over what he called the "baseless slur" of the refusal to grant him entry to the United States.A statement from his lawyers said he wanted to "find out exactly what is going on, and to take all necessary steps to undo the very serious, and wholly unfounded, injustice which I have suffered".
Great. I want to know too. DHS's silence about this only allows its opponents to impute to it the basest of motives, and makes even its friends suspect incompetence (at least).
The article states:
"According to aviation sources with access to the list, there is no Yusuf Islam on the no-fly registry, though there is a "Youssouf Islam." "
Is it possible for the officials running this government to come up with a standard when "translating" Arabic names?
Is this great country so diminshed that we can't translate Arabic into a standard English?
This inadequacy also seems to be a great delight to "scholars" of the Koran when "explaining" that Arabic is so involved and intricate that it can't possibly be rendered successfully into another language.
One is left with the perception that this language may indeed be alien.
But, I don't buy into that perception.
What gives?
Israel says he has funding ties to groups such as Hamas. He looks ridiculous in baggy drag with a turban, but more than a figure of fun, Mr Islam is a Fanatic. I won't be buying any moronic Koranic CD's...hey, I thought
devout Muslims weren't allowed any music except drumbeats for Jihad[or beheadings!!}.
"Yusuf" and "Youssouf" are both English transliterations of the same name in Arabic, with no spelling difference in Arabic, just like "Muhammad", "Mohamet", "Muhamed", etc. are all transliterations of the same Arabic name. So if there is a "Muhammad Dipstick" on the list, a guy with a British passport with the name "Mohamet Dipstick" is properly considered the same person.
Soon the list will have about 1.2 billion names on it and the irony is that it will actually be easier to enforce.
"Soon the list will have about 1.2 billion names on it ..."
Certainly - mostly Mohammed, Abdullah, and Ali.
jay
Cat Stevens was guest of Canadian Hamas front
Muslim singer criticized Judaism as a 'so-called' religion
Stewart Bell
Canada - National Post
Tuesday, September 28, 2004
http://www.canada.com/national/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=572cea4b-839c-4080-9999-f53611a46aba
TORONTO - Yusuf Islam, the British singer formerly known as Cat Stevens, was the guest of honour at a Toronto fundraising dinner hosted by an organization that has since been identified by the Canadian government as a "front" for the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
In a videotape of the 1998 event obtained by the National Post, Mr. Islam describes Israel as a "so-called new society" created by a "so-called religion" and urges the audience to donate to the Jerusalem Fund for Human Services to "lessen the suffering of our brothers and sisters in Palestine and the Holy Land."
The Jerusalem Fund is one of four "fronts" named in a secret Privy Council Office memo that was sent to Jean Chretien, then prime minister, on May 23, 2000, discussing what it called groups that "have unsavoury links with terrorism.
"In a limited number of cases, fundraising in support of violent foreign struggles takes place in Canada through the cover of ethnic, religious or community-based associations and groups, lobbying and even criminal activity," the report says.
"Front groups operating in Canada include the Jerusalem Fund for Human Services (Hamas Front), the World Tamil Movement (Tamil Tigers Front), the Canadian Kurdish Information Network (Kurdistan Workers Party Front) and the Babbar Khalsa (a Sikh extremist front)."
Hamas, also known as the Islamic Resistance Movement, is responsible for most of the suicide bombings against Israelis. Canada has outlawed Hamas under federal anti-terrorism legislation, making it illegal to support the group.
Best known for his hit songs in the 1960s and '70s, when he was known as Cat Stevens, Mr. Islam, 56, a Muslim convert, made headlines last week when his flight from London to Washington was diverted to Maine because his name appeared on a U.S. watch list.
He was expelled from the United States for national security reasons. "Yusuf Islam was placed on the watch list because of activities that could be potentially related to terrorism," a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security told reporters.
The expulsion was criticized by Muslim groups, and Mr. Islam denies any ties to terrorism. "I never knowingly gave any terrorist group money," he said after being deported from Israel in 2000. "I've given to poor people and hospitals. I've helped to buy ambulances in the Holy Land. Obviously quite clear and supportable aims."
But on June 20, 1998, Mr. Islam gave the keynote address at a Jerusalem Fund fundraising dinner held in Toronto. The event was videotaped, and a copy was obtained by the SITE Institute, a U.S. terrorism research organization.
The video opens with a scene of Niagara Falls, overlayed with the Jerusalem Fund logo, which features the al-Aqsa Mosque and the maple leaf. It begins with an unidentified man explaining the activities of the Jerusalem Fund, which he describes as "helping the Muslims in Palestine" by financing hospitals, health clinics, families in need and orphans.
"Palestine is close to the heart of each and every Muslim. What the Muslims of Palestine have been doing for many years now has been that bright light shining, that hope ... that they are still believers that can raise the banner of jihad in the most difficult of circumstances."
Mr. Islam then begins a 45-minute speech in English in which he says it is "intolerable" for Muslims to "stand and watch" the situation in the Middle East. He describes Jerusalem as the centre of a land that is holy because of its connection to Allah.
"So this city which is blessed because of its religious nature. Therefore, what we see today is the result of the departure of religion from this area, of the uprooting of religion. So many of the people of the faith have been exiled from this region, moved on, to make way for what? Strangely and ironically, they moved on in the name of so-called religion, on behalf of ... the Jews.
"Of course, that would explain what is happening. Because the moment that religion and religious virtues disappear, there for sure follows trouble, tyranny, oppression," he says. "So what do we see then today? The concoction of a so-called new society based on an old society."
He says there could be "no redeemer except Allah. No political concept or construct or treaty or agent except the laws of Allah, which he instructed for this world. Jerusalem is that, the symbol of that. Out of the hands of the righteous then it falls into disrepute and blood.
"Jerusalem, al-Quds, it is a mirror reflecting the reality ... If it is dark, if it is bloody, then so too is the world. Today it reflects injustice of the secular man over the religious man. And how can the secular man be given the control and the sanctuary of the divine place of worship when he doesn't even respect what is holy? How? And how can those of faith allow that to happen? Therefore, peace will not return until we return to the Holy Land."