New Martyr of the Turkish Yoke

Yusuf Islam, formerly known as Cat Stevens, was born Steven Demetre Georgiou, of a Greek Cypriot father and a Swedish mother, in England, in 1949. Although his father was Greek Orthodox and his mother a Swedish Lutheran, Steven Georgiou was sent to a Catholic school. The family business, in which everyone worked, was—what should you expect?—a restaurant.
This is a very, very typical story for a Greek family in the post-WW2 diaspora in the U.K. as well as in the U.S. If you want to know more about Cat Stevens from a biographical point of view, read about him in the Wikipedia article. My purpose is not to publish a Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam fan blog, but to examine the lyrics in his ten major albums, and extract his testimonies, to demonstrate that these songs have a basis in the Christian faith into which he was born, but later abandoned.

Why would I want to do this? Well, to be honest, it's because I've always felt connected to him spiritually from listening to and singing his songs all my adult life, even till today. To the younger generation, Cat Stevens will not have the meaning he has for me—of course, I'm speaking of his music. He is a man of my own generation, shaped by the same influences, born into the same faith that I hold, yet he chose Islam over Christ, a religion over the Liberator and Savior of souls. How could he do this? It seems he never really knew Christ as he was growing up, only religion. He is what I would call a casualty of the Church, which never seems to have enough real shepherds to look for the lost sheep.

I've wanted to write my thoughts about Cat Stevens' songs for many years. I've even wanted to send them to him, to let him know how his songs were a major factor in my coming to know Christ. I've wanted him to know that someone picked up what he let fall. Like the story I told in my post Greeks from rocks, my relationship to this man, even though he has never heard of me, still changed the course of my life, for the better, for the best. For to know Christ and to be known by Him is the greatest and only worthy goal for a human being.

There is a book written about (mostly) Greeks who converted to Islam during the Τουρκοκρατία - Tourkokratía (Greek: Turkish rule) entitled New Martyrs of the Turkish Yoke. These were Christian men who were (usually forcibly) converted to Islam during the Ottoman Empire, and who later returned to their Christian faith. The most common testimony of these men before the Muslim judges when they were caught was "I was born a Christian, and I will die a Christian!"

This testimony of these new martyrs (for that is what we call martyrs who gave their lives after the Roman period) exacerbated, frustrated and infuriated the Muslim authorities, who usually bent over backwards to try to save their lives by offering them extreme enticements if they would only remain Muslims. Reading the stories you can feel the pain that some of the Muslim judges felt in condemning these men to death, and I can even believe it was genuine.
Like the men they put to death, these Muslim judges were prisoners of Islam. There could be no escape for either.

I have named this blog The Testimonies of Yusuf Islam, because it concerns the words that have issued out of his mouth up to the time when he renounced Christ and confessed Muhammad, "ash-hadu anna muhammadan rasulallah," and what those words meant to me. I know this is very subjective, and anyone, Cat Stevens himself, can or will say, "No, that's not what I meant by that," and I agree. The fact is, however, that he did say, write and sing these words, and it is for those on whom they fall to understand them. This is both the blessing and the curse of the artist. Once the work has been done and given to the world, it is not his any longer. It belongs to all.

I contend that there are seeds of the Word of God in many of the songs of Cat Stevens, and those seeds have in many cases fallen on good soil, and produced abundantly. Though Cat Stevens probably never gave it a thought, the good and man-loving God gave increase to the seed he planted. It did not return to Him void.
What is Cat Stevens to do with that?

I have named this post New Martyr of the Turkish Yoke, because I still hold out the hope that Yusuf Islam will in the end confess Christ and renounce Islam.
It appears extremely unlikely at this present moment, but I nevertheless continue to pray for it, as I have for whatever, two decades or more. Inside my Jerusalem Bible, the fat softcover one that I have used as my study bible for more than thirty years, I saved a newspaper clipping of a photo of Cat Stevens that I happened to like. That clipping is still there. Oddly, the other side of the page must have had a cartoon-like picture of an angel, for there is what looks like an angel's wing and a thunderbolt issuing from it. I wonder what it was, but I hope that the candle I light for Cat Stevens from time to time will keep his memory alive to God, who alone knows the secrets of our hearts.

He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters. And so I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come. Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit. You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. Matthew 12:30-37 NIV