This new CD is a swan dive into the open sea and quite a switch for a man who spent the past three decades in retreat quietly raising five kids, running two Islamic schools in the UK, founding a charity for kids and making only a few faith-based records for Muslims. Cat Stevens’s catalogue still sells well into the millions decades after his retreat—since 1991 alone, he’s sold 6.2 million albums.

Roadsinger is a compelling mix of Cat Stevens’s simple but deep songwriting, Islam’s optimistic worldview and that voice. Islam traded one type of notoriety for another when he bowed out of his music career and converted to Islam in 1977. Islam chose a faith that’s often misunderstood and feared, changed his name to reflect his beliefs and abandoned his fans for it. Yet his biggest struggle came from within. There was, for instance, all that rock ‘n’ roll excess to contend with, which would never jibe with living a clean, simple life. But as the decades passed, Islam—with the urging of his son, Muhammed—came to the conclusion that his music and his faith did not need to live in exclusivity from one another.

“There is a pang of conscience I feel about getting out there again,” Islam says. “I had dinner with Art Garfunkel recently, and he said, ‘Come on, you’ve got something to say. Get out there and say it. Get in the game.’ I said, ‘You’re right.’ I’m no pinup these days, so I haven’t got to fear becoming a sex idol again,” he says with a laugh.

Talent aside, it’s unlikely that Islam—the London-born son of a Greek Cypriot father and Swedish mother—would have become a pinup, if he hadn’t changed his name from Steven Demetre Georgiou to Cat Stevens in the mid-’60s. He released his major breakthrough LP, 1970’s ‘Tea for the Tillerman’ and over the next five years, the prolific songwriter would create some of the most moving, indelible and uplifting music of the era: Peace train. Wild world. Morning has broken. Then in 1976, Stevens almost drowned off the coast of Malibu during a swim. He claimed it was then he made a deal with God: if spared, he’d devote his life to serving the Lord. A wave rose up and swept him back to shore. Shortly thereafter Stevens’s brother introduced him to the Qur’an and the singer converted. “I just was so happy, I was floating,” he says.

Roadsinger sounds like a Cat Stevens LP: spontaneous, confident, raw and earthy. Even the cover art is a throw back to the ‘Teaser and the Firecat’ days. Designed by his son, it features a vintage VW van decorated with images from classic Cat Stevens album covers: the orange cat, the artful dodger and, of course, the moon. It’s a career come full circle. “Pulling away from it all helped me to appreciate the art of music, and how it can be used positively, again,” says Islam. “I’m happy with what I’m doing. But I want to do a musical.”

Moonshadow has been his pet project for six years. The musical will incorporate Cat Stevens material, new Islam songs, and it’s scheduled to debut in London by the close of this year.