Art & Creativity Quote by Cat Stevens

Cat Stevens is doing something more interesting here than defending his playlists: he is staking a claim to interpretive authority in a tradition that’s often treated, in Western media especially, as monolithic. The opener, “I’ve studied various schools of thought,” is a small rhetorical flex. He positions himself not as a celebrity freelancing theology, but as someone who has done the homework inside Islam’s own argumentative ecosystem. That matters because the fight he’s naming isn’t really about music; it’s about who gets to define “authentic” religion.

The subtext is a delicate negotiation of identity. Stevens (post-conversion, Yusuf Islam) carries two cultural passports that are frequently framed as incompatible: global pop stardom and Muslim piety. By acknowledging that “some Muslims consider music prohibited,” he grants legitimacy to the stricter view without surrendering to it. Then he pivots to prophetic precedent: the Prophet as evidence, not vibes. That’s a strategic move because it shifts the debate from modern moral panic to the deepest source of credibility in Islam.

The line “certainly, but even encouraged” is doing double work. “Allowed” asks for tolerance; “encouraged” asks for affirmative space. And “at certain times” is the key limiter: he’s not arguing for anything-goes hedonism, but for context, ritual, and human need. It’s also a quietly political statement about Islam’s internal diversity, and about art as something a faith can discipline without having to erase.