Yuvan Shankar Raja, son of music maestro Ilaiyaraaja and eminent Tamil music director, left for Umrah pilgrimage. The information about the pilgrimage was released by Yuan himself who tweeted the picture of him in the plane wearing Ihram. The actor has not revealed when he started his journey or when he performed Umrah. Saudi Arabia started admitting Umrah pilgrims again in August 2021 following the spread of Covid. Yuan converted to Islam in 2014.
Controversies – He faced the question of converting for his wife
In 2014, Yuan Shankar Raja announced that he had converted to Islam. Immediately after that, in 2015, he married a woman named Safrun Nisar. This was Yuan’s second marriage. With this, accusations were raised that Yuan changed his religion to get his girlfriend. In 2020, during a social media live, a fan directly asked Yuan about this. That was the first time Yuan clarified the reason for his conversion. His one-line reply was that his conversion to Islam was a long journey. Explained things behind. After the death of his mother in 2011, there was a lot of mental isolation. When he was totally devastated, a friend gave him a musalla (prayer carpet) from Makkah as a gift. It was customary to meditate in this musalla during times of great distress. Yuan’s explanation was that he took Islam as a support when he was alone and mentally broken in a motherless world.
150 films, one of the busiest music directors in Tamil
Father Ilaya Raja is known as Isaijnyani. It means omniscient in music. But Yuan’s arrival cut his own path in the music scene. Yuvan, who entered the music industry at the age of 10, came to the attention of the film world through the Ajith-Murukadas film Deena. Having composed music for more than 150 films, Yuan has been a part of almost all leading actors and films in Tamil.