Former black flag singer turned muslim to christian

A person's faith or religion is a curious and profound thing — it encapsulates their intensely personal belief in how the universe works and was formed, the existence of a higher power, and what happens when we die. And yet when one feels deeply that they've unlocked the answers with this private thing, they generally want to share that with the world.

It's big news, then, when a prominent celebrity not only publicly speaks about that very private thing, but when they announce they've had a major epiphany in how they fundamentally view and experience life, having abandoned their religion of record for a new belief system.

Former black flag singer turned muslim to christian: Aaron Weiss is a man

Perhaps because of the nature of their work, condensing the human experience down into three-minute songs like the modern poets that they are, musicians seem to have big faith conversions more often than other celebrities. Or maybe they're just more adept at expressing their feelings and sharing the news. Here are some of the most famous and popular rock and pop stars of all time who notably underwent a religious conversion and told the world all about it.

One of the dominant talents of the early s singer-songwriter era, impassioned folkie Cat Stevens wrote, sang, and played acoustic guitar on one emotionally powerful, would-be standard after another. During a convalescence from tuberculosis in the late s, Stevens, who as a child was raised in a home that followed the Eastern Orthodox version of Catholicism, read books on Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, numerology, and astrology.

By , and after his ascent to global stardom, Stevens had found what he'd been looking for in Islam. He converted, adopted the name Yusuf Islam, and walked away from popular music. I felt a responsibility to my fans, but I would have been a hypocrite," he told The Guardian. The musician, who now uses the name Yusuf Cat Stevens, re-emerged briefly in when he seemed to publicly support the Islamic fatwa calling for the death of Salman Rushdie over his perceived-as-blasphemous novel "The Satanic Verses," and started performing again in — primarily religious music at first.