Cat Stevens is not interested in discussing his previous remarks about novelist Salman Rushdie.
The singer sparked controversy in 1989 when he appeared to criticize author Salman Rushdie for his depiction of Islam in novel,The Satanic Verses. Stevens converted to Islam in 1977 and officially changed his name to Yusuf Islam a year later. He first embraced the Islamic faith after surviving tuberculosis in 1969, and nearly drowning in Malibu in 1976.
Stevens was asked if he would attend an effigy burning of Rushdie during an interview with a British TV program in 1989, and he responded: “I would have hoped that it would have been the real thing, but actually no, if it's just an effigy I don't think I would be that moved to go there.”
Stevens was asked about those remarks during an interview with CBS News’ Sunday Morning as he promoted his new memoir, Cat On The Road To Findout.
“I mean, I've got a British sense of humor,” Stevens said. “I took it in a kind of slightly comical direction. It wasn't a good thing to do, because nobody laughed.
“So, you know, I made a mistake in thinking that people might get the joke,” he continued. “But it was a serious issue, so I shouldn't have really done that.”
When CBS News interviewer Seth Doane asked him to clarify what he meant by “joke,” Stevens cut him off and said: “Whatever, whatever.”
Doane then brought up the headlines that were written about Stevens’ comments towards Rushdie in the past. However, the singer shut that topic down.
“Let’s get off the subject, please,” Stevens said, before Doane acknowledged that the singer’s new memoir, Cat on the Road to Findout, mentions Rushdie.
“No, it’s only a little bit part of the book,” Stevens replied.
Doane added: “But it seems like with this book, you partially wanted to set the record straight from your perspective.” Stevens agreed and responded by saying he’s already done that.
In the new memoir, Stevens writes about Rushdie’s book, The Satanic Verses, saying he found portions of it “unbelievably rude and offensive.” Stevens explains that he had contacted the book’s publisher to have it pulled from circulation.
During a public talk at Kingston University in London in 1989, Stevens was also alleged to have said that Rushdie should have been put to death for his book. But the musician said he was set up by an undercover tabloid journalist, and made to look like he supported the fatwa that had been placed on Rushdie.
Rushdie had been placed under a fatwa, a religious ruling calling for his death, by former supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini after writing The Satanic Verses.
Stevens writes in his memoir that a public apology he issued to Rushdie was largely ignored by the press, and he was painted as “an unrepentant supporter of the ayatollah and his fatwa.”
He also says the incident resulted in an “onslaught of misunderstanding and hatred like nothing I’d ever experienced”. He describes the ordeal as a “blistering asteroid” on his career that led to “shadow banning” by some journalists and prompted a greater dedication to his faith.
When Khomeini called for the execution of Rushdie in 1989, the author was forced to spend years in hiding. He emerged from hiding in 1995, before the Iranian government stated in 1998 that it would no longer support the fatwa.
Rushdie has been under threat of attack since the publication of The Satanic Verses, which triggered a wave of controversy for its depiction of the prophet Muhammad.
In 2022, Rushdie was stabbed around 12 times at the Chautauqua Institution in New York, with the incident leaving him blind in one eye. Hadi Matar, 27, was sentenced to 25 years last month for the attack on Rushdie.
In June, the novelist made his most high-profile, in-person appearance in three years, speaking at the 2025 Hay Festival in the UK. During the event, Rushdie also said it was an “important moment” for him when he and his wife Eliza “went back to the scene” of where he was stabbed “to show myself I could stand up where I fell down.”
“It will be nice to talk about fiction again because ever since the attack, really the only thing anybody's wanted to talk about is the attack, but I'm over it,” he said.
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