Tajuk : Why I Still Carry A Guitar (The Spiritual Journey of Cat Stevens to Yusuf Islam)
Penulis : Yusuf Islam
Penerbit : ITBM
Bilangan mukasurat : 96
Cat Steven is quite a famous pop superstar back then, even until now some of his old song were still being played such as 'The Wind' were used inside a famous TV series called 'How I Met your mother'
At a young age, during his initial fame and success Steven suffered tuberculosis and was hospitalized. Since then he started to wonder what is the purpose of life? After awhile he began to write music again, but now his music sounds like folksy with more personal and soulful lyrics, like the songs called 'Father & Son' or 'Wild World'. Most of the lyrics had a clear sense of searching.
While celebrating the life of a superstar who made quite a living from his latest album, Steven went to a vacation at Malibu in Los Angeles, the home for many millionaires. There at the beach, he tried to swim in the sea without knowing that it was a bad day for a swim. He then felt that his leg and arms were aching and getting too tired to swim back to the land. No one is around there during that time, so he can't called anyone for help.
He realised that it was the end of his life and he tried to pray at the depth of his sinking heart, "O God, if You save me, I'll work for You!" At that moment, a gentle wave came and pushed him forward and somehow he was survived. Afterward he start to searching for God in many religions.
This books tells his story of his spiritual journey of searching for a religion and also all the problem that he faced after took Shahadah. Such as how the media mocked him and problem with the influence of Salafi around the London and problem with certain muslims. Even at first he was told that the music is haram, Yusuf Islam (his name after he embrace Islam) had stopped making music and had gotten rid of all his musical instruments.
He had also joined the tabligh group and were enlisted to do 'forty days' of travelling and tabligh (conveying Islam). Then a certain brother gave him a book to try and help him learn certain etiquettes that had almost blew him away. Which is some 1000 'masalas' (question with juristic answer) with endless dos and don'ts but none of them gave any reference to the Quran or authentic Hadith. Some of the masalas even stated we had to bury our clipped nails and any cut hair beneath the earth.
This things have made Yusuf became fearful of falling into Taqleed (Simply an imitational form of Islam) since he is quite a thinker and seeker. He was consciously careful of not to become an adherent of anyone, even they are the same muslim, but to follow the prophet pbuh.
In this book, he explaining to everyone who had been judging him for making a living in the industry of music. He, however during 25 years of studying the subject (He stop making music for quite awhile before started making Islamic songs) had aware of it and come with a decisions which he stated in the books.
In one of the text in the book he said, "Please understand, it is not my role to pass a fatwah, nor am I expected to do so.
I am not claiming to be sinless; I am personally trying to explain my own actions;
I try to follow the clear path of Islam, according to clear evidence, and stay away from that which Allah, the Almighty and Most Wise, has stated is inarguably and clearly forbidden."
In addition, this books also contain a few words quoted from his song's lyrics which relate to anything that he wrote, so I spend a few time listening to his songs while reading it. You'll get the best feeling of reading it.
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A Not-really-Short note: There is also Malay translated version of this book called 'Mengapa Saya Masih Memetik Gitar', Yusuf Islam said in one of his interview he had a relation with Malays.
After he became a Muslim, he at first, still writing songs while using the Cat Steven name under the record and once he named his album 'Bismillah'. He learnt that Muslim have to start everything with Bismillah.
But soon after the album came out, he received a lot of complaint from Malays especially, they told him that he can't do that, he was really frightened at that time since he thought he had commit something really terrible (Since back then he was still in process of learning Islam).
Probably, this translated version will be the answer to those Malays.
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