“Bob Dylan and Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) go head to head for No1 spot,” by Patrick Foster for the Times, May 9 (thanks to James):
Their acoustic tones may sit more easily with the counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s than with the iPod generation, but this weekend two sexagenarians will go head to head in the battle for a No 1 album.
Bob Dylan, who last week topped the charts for the first time in 39 years, faces a Top Ten challenge from Yusuf Islam, the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens, who returns to the charts with his new offering, Roadsinger (To Warm You Through The Night).
So what? Glad you asked!
“Cat Stevens Gives Support To Call for Death of Rushdie,” by Craig R. Whitney in the New York Times, May 23, 1989:
TONDON, May 22 — The musician known as Cat Stevens said in a British television program to be broadcast next week that rather than go to a demonstration to burn an effigy of the author Salman Rushdie, ”I would have hoped that it’d be the real thing.”
The singer, who adopted the name Yusuf Islam when he converted to Islam, made the remark during a panel discussion of British reactions to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s call for Mr. Rushdie to be killed for allegedly blaspheming Islam in his best-selling novel ”The Satanic Verses.” He also said that if Mr. Rushdie turned up at his doorstep looking for help, ”I might ring somebody who might do more damage to him than he would like.”
”I’d try to phone the Ayatollah Khomeini and tell him exactly where this man is,” said Mr. Islam, who watched a preview of the program today and said in an interview that he stood by his comments….
Yes, now he denies having said it. But considering that he has been an ardent orthodox believer ever since his conversion, and that all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence do mandate a death penalty for blasphemy, I find his denials unconvincing.
So…if you’re in the UK, keep an enemy of free speech and freedom of conscience, a man who has supported a Hamas front group, out of the #1 chart spot: buy the new Dylan album today! (It’s even good.)
UPDATE: Here is Yusuf Islam, Cat Stevens, on video saying what he now denies (thanks to Jiminy Cricket in the comments):
SECOND UPDATE, May 11: Victory!
