Letting Cat back out of the bag

Yusuf Islam, the former Cat Stevens, is making a quiet comeback.

Thirty years after the folk singer converted to Islam, changed his name and dropped out of music, calling it un-Islamic, he has picked up the guitar once more.

He says he has reconciled pop music with his faith and wants to use his talents to spread a message of peace.

“For some people, it’s a welcome return to the sound of my voice and my music,” says Islam, 58, who as Cat Stevens sold 60 million albums with songs like “Wild World” and “Peace Train.”

“I walked away abruptly,” he adds. “Perhaps that had something to do with the reaction I received from the press at the time. I was given the cold shoulder.

“Now it’s the opposite. I don’t feel that same hostility. People appreciate that I’m (making music again) for a really good reason: to make peace and try and make people happy.”

So far, his return has been low-key. A concert aired Sunday in England on BBC TV, and he’s considering taking part in July’s Live Earth concert series, to raise awareness about climate change.

Late last year, Islam launched his first pop album since his conversion in 1977. Titled “An Other Cup,” the folksy CD includes a song he wrote in 1968, “Greenfields, Golden Sands.”

As Yusuf Islam, he had previously only recorded a handful of spoken word records on Islamic topics, some with percussion.

Dubai, where he lives part of the year (he spends most of his time in his native London), is where Islam’s return to music took place after his son bought a guitar in 2002.

“I looked at it and, well, we just got back together again,” he says.

But he had already been studying the Prophet Muhammad’s attitudes toward music. He learned that a guitar-like instrument was introduced to Europe by a seventh century Muslim musician who brought it from Baghdad to Muslim-ruled Spain.

“For a long time I had doubts about music,” Islam says. “There’s a certain point of view among certain schools of thought in Islam that considers music too closely connected to hedonistic tendencies – you know, sex, drugs and rock and roll.

“But when you take it out of one context and put it in another context, which is connected to healing, spirituality, morality and family values, it’s wholesome, good stuff,” he says.

“That’s the kind of music the Prophet encouraged.”

Islam says there is interest in his music now because the “tremendous conflicts that have been created by extremists” have created a longing for the peaceful sounds and positive messages of his songs, old and new.

“I don’t see it so much as a return as a fresh start,” he says.

“It’s a new era. Forty years have passed since my first record and times have definitely changed. If John Lennon were alive he’d probably be singing something similar.”

The birthday bunch

Actress Cloris Leachman is 81. Singer Willie Nelson is 74. Singer Bobby Vee is 64. Actress Jill Clayburgh is 63. Singer Merrill Osmond (The Osmonds) is 54. Actor Adrian Pasdar (“Heroes”) is 42. Singer Akon is 34. Actor Johnny Galecki (“Roseanne”) is 32. Rapper Lloyd Banks is 25. Actress Kirsten Dunst is 25.