At the annual convention of the Islamic Society of North America, ex-pop star Cat Stevens, now known as Yusuf Islam after his conversion to the Religion of Peace�, urged American Muslims to start Islamic schools in their communities.

Stevens, who now uses the name Yusuf Islam, said he got the idea when the prayer leader at his mosque gave a sermon about the importance of Muslim schools and asked the singer for a donation.

“So I wrote a check, a big check,” he said Saturday, joking with the audience about his former life. “I was still a pop star at the time.”

He and other parents from the mosque who met each Sunday then decided to start their own school, he said. It opened in 1983 in London.

He urged American Muslims to follow suit.

“Once a Muslim school is established it indicates the arrival of the community in that place,” he said.

In 1990, Yusuf Islam and his son were detained and deported from Israel for writing a check—a big check—to Hamas.