Cat Stevens (born Stephen Demetre Georgiou on July 21, 1948, and now named Yusuf Islam) is best known for his tenure as a popular British singer-songwriter.
At the outset of his musical career, Georgiou adopted the Cat Stevens moniker. As Cat Stevens, he sold forty million albums, mostly in the 1960s and 1970s. His most notable songs include "Morning Has Broken", "Peace Train", "Moonshadow", "Wild World", "Father and Son", "Matthew and Son", "The First Cut is the Deepest", and "Oh Very Young".
Stevens became a convert to Islam in 1978 after a near-death experience. He adopted the name Yusuf Islam and became an outspoken advocate for the religion. A decade later, controversy arose when he was reported to have made comments supporting a fatwa against author Salman Rushdie, and in 2004 returned to the public eye when he was denied entry into the United States after his name appeared on a no-fly list.
Yusuf Islam currently lives with his wife and five children in London, where he is an active member of the Muslim community. He founded the Small Kindness charity, which initially assisted famine victims in Africa and now supports thousands of orphans and families in the Balkans, Indonesia, and Iraq. Islam also founded the charity Muslim Aid but left as founding Chairman in 1999.
