The journey of Yusuf back to making music has taken 28 long years. The millions who bought the records he made as Cat Stevens back in the '60s and '70s always hoped that one day, the world would again hear his mellow voice and intimate, thought-provoking songs. There were times when they feared it would never happen. Now the long wait is finally over and those wishes have come true.
 
The path that led to his first collection of new songs since 1978 represents one of the most remarkable tales of our time. To say that An Other Cup picks up exactly where he left off would be to ignore the life-changing significance of the spiritual quest that has taken him from youthful pop singer to arguably the best-known and most widely respected figure in British Muslim society today. And yet listen to the songs and there is so much that is familiar. His voice still has the same rich, warm patina, he has lost none of his ability to conjure a memorable melody and his songwriting articulates our profound needs and emotions more eloquently than ever.
 
"When I picked up the guitar again it was like a floodgate," he says. "Ideas and melodies floated in without effort. The novelty of the whole process, searching for forgotten chords, inspired me; it made it feel the simple joy of being back as an amateur - with nothing much to lose."
 
Co-produced by Yusuf and Rick Nowells (whose credits include working with Madonna, Rod Stewart, Dido and the Corrs) and with guitarist Alun Davis who played on many of his classic albums back in tandem, the record sounds anything but amateur. Yet you know what he means for after so long away, the album has a freshness and vibrancy more usually associated with a debut than someone who is this year celebrating the 40th anniversary of his first hit.
 
"Most of the songs were written over the past two years, "he reveals." Others were actually written during the recording sessions and some are the result of a musical I've been working on called Moonshadow.  A few are old friends left over from way back when, but unvisited in many years."
 
The story of Yusuf's early career as Cat Stevens is well-enough known and has become - although he will hate the phrase - the stuff of pop legend. Born Steven Georgiou into a Greek-Cypriot and Swedish family household, he grew up in London and attended a Roman Catholic school. He had his first pop hit before he was out of his teens with I Love My Dog and followed it with further hits such as Matthew & Son.
 
Then in 1968 when he appeared to have it all, he was struck down with a life-threatening disease. It was to prove to be a key moment in his life. "I was working three shows a night and overdoing everything and it resulted in me contracting tuberculosis," he recalls. "Because I was close to death, I started to think more purposefully about the meaning of life and why we are here. That was the beginning of my search for something beyond, that eventually led me on a long journey to find out"
 
After a lengthy period of recovery, he re-emerged in 1970 with the album Mona Bone Jakon and a new, more reflective style. He followed with Tea For The Tillerman (1970) and Teaser And The Firecat (1971), albums that defined the sensitive singer-songwriter and inspired a generation of bedsit troubadours. Meanwhile, songs such as Peace Train and Morning Has Broken reflected the inner quest he had already embarked upon.
 
"I was always seeking and my songs reflect that very clearly," he says today. "I was looking beyond the surface of the material world and wanted to find some higher truth.  I started to study different religions - Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, Zen, even numerology and astrology. I was looking everywhere. If you delve into my songs and lyrics you will find the narrative of my life - where I was going, what I was thinking, what I was feeling. But above all you will see there were a lot of questions and a lot answers I was seeking."
 
He continued to express his search through music on albums such as Catch Bull At Four (1972), Foreigner (1973) and Buddha and The Chocolate Box (1974). Then in 1976 his brother gave him a copy of The Koran. "I began to read it and found a totally unique form of revelation in terms of the communication between God and man," he recalls.
 
Another of the turning points that have punctuated his life came shortly after when he was swimming off the coast of Malibu in California. "I was in the ocean and suddenly I'd lost it, I had no power to swim any more," he remembers.  "I was fighting the ocean and I had nobody with me. Yet I did have someone. I called out, 'God, if you save me I'll work for you'. A friendly wave swept me into the shore and from that arose within me a deep conviction and belief that there is a higher control over one's life."
 
A final album, Back To Earth, appeared in 1979 but by then he was set upon a different course, giving up music to follow the path of Islam and changing his name to reflect his new-found faith. "To some people it may have seemed like an enormous jump," he admits. "But for me it was a gradual dawning and my songs had already primed me for it. Anyway, I always had a fondness for the name Joseph."  
 
He has often been asked why he gave up music so completely and did not find a way to accommodate his faith and his career. “Interestingly, I gave an interview in 1980 to a Muslim magazine and they asked me about music and the future and I said I'd suspended my musical activities for fear that it may divert me from the true path," he recalls. "But I also added that I couldn't be dogmatic and say I'll never make music again.  There's nothing in the Koran that says music is forbidden, yet when I looked at the music business I realised it was definitely a negative infringement on what I wanted from my spiritual life. I didn't want to have to worry about it, so for me that meant giving away my guitars and getting down to the job of living, starting  the charitable work I wanted to do, and having a family life."
 
Since his conversion the royalties from his old records have been channelled into his charity work and the Islamic schools he set up in North London. Over the years, his actions and beliefs as a Muslim have often been misunderstood and misrepresented by the media and controversy has at times engulfed him. He accepts this as a reflection of how extremists on both sides have attempted to use Islam as a combatant in a global struggle. "It may come as news to some, but the word Islam itself derives from the word peace," he points out. "That is the heart and soul of the religion and is what I've always followed. Other horrendous events that have taken place mean that it's now necessary to educate people that this religion is based on spiritual love, unity and tolerance. I think that I've made that journey and perhaps I can help others to an understanding that the vast majority of Muslims simply want to live a good life and be at peace with the rest of the world. Today I am in a unique position as a looking glass through which Muslims can see the west and the west can see Islam, and it is important for me to be able to help bridge the cultural gaps others are sometimes frightened to cross.”
 
It's a role that led to him recently being given the European Man of Peace award (voted for by Nobel laureates and presented by Mikhail Gorbachev) - and which has now finally led him back to music and his first batch of new songs since 1978. One of his most famous songs in the '70s was Father and Son, a dialogue across two generations, and intriguingly it was his own son who was the catalyst in his picking up a guitar again. "My son has got tremendous musical talent and I didn't even know that," he recounts. "He had brought a guitar back into the house and there it was. One morning, after everybody had prayed and gone back to sleep, the guitar was lying on the couch and I picked it up and found I still remembered the chords. Then I started to sing along to some of the tunes and the words that I'd been writing recently and said, 'Hey! I think I have a job to do'. That's' how I got the guitar back. It felt like I was being helped to do it. I can't describe it any other way.”

That was two years ago. Now the job’s done and the new songs rank among the best he's ever written. Many of them are deeply autobiographical, such as Heaven/Where True Love Goes, which alludes to his fateful swim all those years ago in Malibu ("if a storm should come and you face a wave that may be the chance for you to be saved"). One track Whispers from a Spiritual Garden includes a poem inspired by the 13th century Sufi mystic, Jalaluddin Rumi.
 
One Day At A Time is blessed with one of his loveliest melodies, its gentle acoustics perfectly matched by the song's equally gentle philosophy. Maybe There's A World boasts another memorable melody and a visionary lyric that – like John Lennon’s Imagine - dreams of a better world "borderless and wide, where people move from place to place and nobody's taking sides. “There’s even an extraordinary cover of Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood with a dramatic string arrangement, in which it's impossible not to hear Yusuf's own commentary on the way his religion and spiritual conviction have sometimes been misrepresented and misconstrued.
 
Fascinatingly, the new material sits perfectly alongside Greenfields, Golden Sands, a never-released song he wrote in 1968 and which might have found its way on to Mona Bone Jakon. “Good songs never die,” Yusuf says. After having written Greenfields in 1968, some ten years later he recalls hearing his very same words mirrored by John Lennon in his dreamer’s anthem, Imagine. “It was comforting to know I was not the only one holding on to dreams. Most of the songs are inspired by the urge to raise human consciousness and seek to find a better world - or make one," he reasons. "In that respect, you can definitely see a clear stream between some of the old songs of the idealistic 60’s and 70’s and the new."
 
Ultimately, the reason for his return, he says, is simple. "The language of song is simply the best way to communicate the powerful winds of change which brought me to where I am today, and the love of peace still passing through my heart. I feel gifted to have that ability still within me. I never wanted to get involved in politics because that essentially separates people, whereas music has the power to unify, and is so much easier than for me than to give a lecture."
 
At this he smiles knowingly. "You can argue with a philosopher, but you can't argue with a good song. And I think I've got a few good songs."