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When my brother came back to UK in 1976 there was
a Festival of Islam taking place in London, everywhere
were books about Islam. He saw the Qur’an in
the bookshop and he said ‘That’s the Bible
of the Muslims’. So, he decided to buy it and
give it to me as a gift.
When I started to read the Qur’an, the first
thing that I did was to try and keep an open mind
because there were so many preconceived images already
built up within me. Many are the times I’d visited
my favourite spiritual bookshop in LA, called the
Bhodi Tree, but never had I even bothered to look
at the Islam bookshelf before. Perhaps that was because
my father belonged to a Greek-Cypriot culture and,
therefore, anything connected to Muslims was hostile
to me.
But the more I read the Qur’an, the more it
struck me, deep down. This was not quite that foreign
religion which I had come to expect. First and foremost
it was talking about belief in God, the Master of
the universe; talking about humanity as one family.
It mentioned many prophets, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad
included, being brothers equally teaching the same
message of unity to mankind, and all of us being the
offspring of Adam and Eve.
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In the daytime time
for celebration
No use looking down if it's over here
It's a world a new creation
And the golden light of the morning
Makes it easy to comb your hair
And the love of a child
It's the time of the year
In the daytime you can move a mountain
With a blink of your eye
Now it's over here now it's over there
It's a world with no complications
And the curtains on the window
Start blowing like your hair
And the love that I feel
Cause it's the time of the year
Mysterious moon found me crying in the dark
Heard my footsteps on the stairs
Mysterious moon found me crying
But the sun dried my tears
Showed he cares
In the daytime time for celebration
No use looking down children open your eyes
It's a world a whole nation
Now the white boats have landed
And the innocent are here
So dream for the child
Cause it's the time of the year
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| DAYTIME |
After
a while I read the chapter called ‘Joseph’
(Yusuf). My life seemed to melt into a mirror of this
story. Up to then I too, like Joseph, had passed through
many stages and been sold in the market. The section
of the story that really shook me was when his brothers,
who had thrown him down the well, were face to face
with him. Unaware that Joseph was in front of them,
they were talking badly about him, slandering him.
But he kept it within himself. God! Something resonated
inside me, perhaps it was those words I wrote in Father
and Son: “All the times that I’ve cried,
keeping all the things I knew inside”. At that
point, I wept. That chapter opened my heart.
On a winter Friday in 1977, I took that dramatic step
and walked to the Mosque in London’s Regent’s
Park to declare my faith. Out of the greenery of the
trees, there shone this golden dome which was never
there before. That was in a way the epitome of everything
that I was now discovering: suddenly it was there
– where it wasn't there before.
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Don't you feel a change a coming
from another side of time
breaking down the walls of silence
lifting shadows from your mind
Placing back the missing mirrors
that before you couldn't find
filling mysteries of emptiness
that yesterday left behind
And we all know it's better
Yesterday has past
now let's all start the living
for the one that's going to last
And we all know it's better
Yesterday has past
now let's all start the living
for the one that's going to last
Don't you feel the day is coming
that will stay and remain
when your children see the answers
that you saw the same
when the clouds have all gone
there will be no more rain
and the beauty of all things
is uncovered again
Don't you feel the day is coming
and it won't be too soon
when the people of the world
can all live in one room
when we shake off the ancient
shake off the ancient chains of our tomb
we will all be born again
of the eternal womb
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| CHANGES
IV |
I
was still making records but - like Moses and the
magicians - the Truth ultimately had to win. Interestingly,
there wasn’t anything in the Qur’an directly
mentioning music; it didn’t say music was forbidden.
But there were many things that were forbidden or
clearly immoral such as fornication, drunkenness,
false idols, competition, greed and selfishness among
other things. Then I started to analyse. ‘Hang-on,’
I thought to myself, ‘the music business is
full of that stuff, how can you really develop and
get closer to the Angels if you stay in that kind
of an environment?’ For me, I found it very
difficult.
At last, when I got a chance to escape from the limelight
- I grabbed it. The only real regret I have, is that
the link that existed between those who listened to
my songs and me ceased to exist. For a long time I
lost that privileged link of communication by cutting
myself off from the music business. But it was very
difficult to stay on the straight path, firmly on
your feet amidst all the commercialism and the hype
of rock star existence. |
And those who disbelieve say of the
Truth when it has come unto them, ‘This is
naught else than plain magic!
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| (The Qur'an,
Sheba) |
What kind of power,
What kind of demon is this?
Who kicks me out in shame?
With every word he says
What kind of majik of majiks.
What kind of war is this?
That I can't fight no more
That leaves me weaponless,
And nails me to the floor
What kind of power, of powers.
What kind of man -
Can make me turn and see
The way I really am.
Oh tell me who, oh who?
Where have my brothers gone,
Why I don't see them about
They're all around him now.
And keeping me out
What kind of madness, of madness
"Go on and let him in, he's only asking for
A simple job to do and nothing more" they said.
But looking back
I see this stranger had the key
To any door he wished, with his eyes I say.
What kind of majiks, of majiks
What kind of man -
Can make me turn and see the way I really am.
Oh tell me who, oh who?
"Go on and let him in, he's only asking for
A simple job to do and nothing more" they said.
"Go on and let him in."
"Go on and let him in, he's only asking for
A simple job to do and nothing more."
But looking back
I see this stranger had the key
To any door.
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| MAJIK OF
MAJIKS |
And to God belong
the east and the west. So wherever you [might] turn,
there is the Face of God. Indeed, God is all Encompassing,
and Knowing
|
| (The Qur'an,
Al Baqarah) |
In
1980 I had the privilege to fulfil one of my Islamic
obligations, to visit Makkah during the blessed month
of Pilgrimage. Lo and Behold! I had come to the Centre
of the Universe, where the physical and metaphysical
worlds meet. I was floating in that wonderful sea
of humanity, turning like stars in a galaxy, around
the house of God, built by Prophet Abraham and his
son Ismail - submitters to God - two and a half thousand
years ago. The central monolithic structure, the ‘Ka’bah’,
was a sublimely simple cube shaped building made of
rough stones. And it was empty. God Almighty can not
be fitted into a house! I had at last found that dimension
where human existence ceases to be held by the gravitation
of sensual and worldly desires, where the soul is
freed in an atmosphere of obedience and peaceful submission
to the Divine Presence: La Baik, “Here I am
O God, Here I am.”
|
God is the Light
of the heavens and the earth. The similitude of
his light is as a niche wherein is a lamp; the lamp
is within a glass; the glass is as were a pearly
white star, lit from a blessed olive tree neither
of the east nor west, whose oil would almost glow
forth of itself, though no fire touched it. Light
upon Light, God guides to his Light whom He chooses.
And God propounds to mankind parables. And God of
all things is Knowing.
|
| (The Qur'an,
Al Noor) |
When the light of God shines, the human light
sets.
|
| (Philo)
|
I
discovered that the human soul does not live only
by means of material success and acclaim, it needs
contentment, which actually requires a person to be
normal sized. Stardom is not normal; everything has
to be bigger and be better, you have to be competitive.
Getting out of that race, quite frankly, is what I
did. I was given a chance to find my own way to happiness;
each person must choose whichever road he or she wishes
to follow. But if people knew more about this particular
path to the Centre of the Universe, then I believe
that there would be much more understanding and unity
in this world.
|
Be indifferent to the life of the world and
God will love you; and be indifferent to what people
possess and the people will love you.
|
| (The Last
Prophet Muhammad pbuh) |
How great the wonders of the heavens
And the timeless beauty of the night
How great - then how great the Creator?
And its stars like priceless jewels
Far beyond the reach of kings
Bow down for the shepherd guiding him home.
But how many eyes are closed to the wonder of this
night?
Like pearls, hidden, deep beneath a dark stream
of desires.
But like dreams vanish with the call to prayer
And the dawn extinguishes night - here too are signs
God is the Light
God is the Light
How great the beauty of the earth and the creatures
Who dwell on her
How great -- then how great the Creator?
As it's mountains pierce the clouds
High about the lives of men
Weeping rivers for thousands of years
But how many hearts are closed
To the wonders of this sight?
Like birds in a cage, asleep with closed wings
But as work stops with the call to prayer
And the birds recite - here too are signs
God is the Light
God is the Light
How great the works of man and the things he makes
How great -- then how great the Creator?
Though he strives to reach the heavens
He can barely survive
The wars of the world he lives in
Yet how many times he's tried, himself to immortalise?
Like his parents before him in the Garden of Eden
But like the sun sets with the call to prayer
And surrenders to the night here too are signs
God is the Light Everlasting
God is the Light Everlasting
God is the Light Everlasting
God is the Light Everlasting
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| GOD IS THE
LIGHT |
| end |
