British singer Sami Yusuf rocks in Istanbul

British singer Sami Yusuf, dubbed "Islam's biggest rock star" by Time magazine, performed a two-hour concert before an enthusiastic crowd of 3,000 on Friday at Istanbul's Harbiye Cemil Topuzlu Open-air Theater. During the concert, for the first time Yusuf sang "Without You Giz," a present to him from famous Turkish singer Sezen Aksu. Turkish writer and journalist Güneri Civaoglu, who was among the concertgoers, said that that since September 2001 the name of Islam has been unjustly associated with terrorism but that artists like Yusuf can help dispel this prejudice. Calling Yusuf an important singer, Civaoglu added, "It is a beautiful thing that such an artist was produced by the Islamic world." Yusuf's first concert in Turkey was two years ago, at Istanbul's Feshane Culture Center on the shores of the Golden Horn.