What did Mufti Abu Layth actually do as a Prevent mentor?

because I see it as counterproductive um so I wouldn't advise people to engage with it my own experiences as well have been along the way rather strange uh initially I mean contrary to what many people may or may not know when when prent was introduced into local communities many most major murgi were engaged with prent um and they contined to do for continue to do so for at least a couple of years um in the imams were contacted major imams to act as mentors so I was also contacted and asked that would you be a mentor to

somebody because many people are not actually involved not actually uh aware of what is the role of people who have so my own personal role when I did um when I was involved with prevent and it wasn't on a full-time type of capacity it was just um like episodic or periodic type of Engagement and involvement and it was as a mentor so it involved things like uh if people felt that there was somebody and usually it was the council it was driven by the council initially and also by by the police and the authorities as well that if they felt there was a person not that who was extreme but he

may have been borderline radical they felt this they are not in a position to talk to the person or to ask him questions about his faith because they don't know about the faith so they turned to the local community and they asked the local community that would you be prepared to speak to this person since you have a common Faith so they turn to imams to to m they turned I was also asked would I take up this mentoring role which I did um so what that would mean is they would ask this person that look there seems to be some concerns they feel there's some

concerns they will ask him that will you are you prepared to speak to an Imam are you prepared to speak to somebody who knows about Islam uh you may have questions you can ask that person are you prepared if this person said okay yes sure I'll speak to somebody they would then contact an Imam or they would contact a um usually they would contact one of their mentors hopefully that would be an Imam um which was my capacity as well that I was a mentor for so they would contact me let's say as well say look are you would you be happy to go and meet this person and I'm fine I mean I

would go meet this person um if that person agreed for us to for him to be mentor it was only done by this person's consent so if I would meet the person say look I introduce myself this is who I am I've studied Islam like this uh do you have any questions sometimes people would have a few questions sometimes they wouldn't I would ask them would you want me to come and kind of meet you whether it's once a month or sometimes it may be twice whatever it was would you want to speak to me about Islam and speak to me about certain things on many occasions people said yeah that's fine I I don't mind you coming along uh you know I'd

like you to come um in some cases people would say no now you would go and you'd work with with these people generally most PE people were not actually um radicals or you know they were not radical in most cases you you'll find people were just just being silly and you know somebody may have said something wrongly said something they may have wrongly written something they may have just TR some people may have thought they were being funny by saying certain things which other people around them were very sensitive too and so therefore that fell under you know this person becoming flagged up as or

being reported as is radical so you would hopefully clear all of this as a mentor you would visit this person You' tell you know the person would tell you what the incident was youd meet on a few occasions if the person had any questions you'd help guide them and that's that on a handful of occasions there were people who did did maybe have some dangerous thoughts and uh they were they were a minority of people but they you know there were some occasions where people did have some um some dangerous perhaps wishes and things like this which you would try to work with in

saying look you you want to kind of ask why does this person have so much hatred against uh certain people in society why because ultimately that hatred and God forbid harm which they may want to kind of undertake will only come back on everybody including the Muslims as well so you try to work with this person in saying look look why talk to me and and you know you try to show them historical examples you try to work with them so that was my involvement um with prevent it was on in that capacity there was no such thing I'd like to clarify there was no such thing as a like covert

operations so uh I mean I'm not saying that the government or people do or do not have things like that I'm just saying this wasn't as far as what we were aware of within prent as mentors uh what we were generally aware of there were a few imams up and down the country that were involved in this like I said many most within Birmingham I can speak of Birmingham all the major mid were involved with prent I mean there isn't a single major Masjid in Birmingham that was not and that's public records but I mean the thing is that there isn't sometimes people feel that if somebody was involved with prevent it meant they

were spying you were I mean there was no such thing I mean we were any Mentor was clearly told that it would be unlawful for a person to collect data uh in a uh in a secretive or surreptitious or um in a covert manner it would actually be unlawful and anybody doing that would get into trouble I mean this is what we were told and that's what everybody acted by when you turned up to somebody to to offer them mentoring to Mentor them before you even came they were asked it was voluntary they were asked would you like to speak to an Imam

because obviously the authorities are not uh you know they not an authority on the dean they're not going to speak they're not actually allowed to engage with you on matters of the dean so they're not allowed to the authorities or council members are not allowed to sit somebody down and say you know well talk to me about this of the Quran and I think it's a different opinion or I think cuz that's not their remit so they're not allowed to do that so they have so they will resort to people of the faith to come in and engage with these people and it's all done with the person want his willingness his willfulness is key to the mentoring program so I mean that's what I would do

is there was no such thing as spying I mean I would consider that absolutely Haram um you know to to be working against Muslims or to be generally against people and especially against Muslims in a way where you are spying on them where you are trying to uh land people in trouble and whether you're trying to gain monetary Rewards or you're trying to gain brown brownie points or whatever you're trying to do if you are trying to cause harm to the community at large and the Muslim Community especially by doing things like this uh that would be impermissible that and that's something I've I had never in any of the mentoring program that I was involved in come across somebody doing something like and

neither were there any suggestions so that's was my involvement which was like I said it wasn't a full-time involvement but it was periodic I would be you know whether it was um odd occasions I mean my full-time in involvement was in other things I would teach I would do other things but this was uh on the side and it wasn't something I was keeping very quiet I was very open about look this is what I'm involved in most who know me uh that have actually sat with me I've told them a lot of the times oh by the way I do mentoring as well uh part of uh prevent you know they ask me and usually the know about it and I've mentioned it openly the whether they're here whether

they're International whether they're local I mean any of the that have come visited me I've always been open about these type of things so it's nothing um kind of all clandestine and hidden and it's not spying or Espionage or MI5 or you know all these type of things which people were wondering and they were asking these questions um it it is what it is I mean that's what it was that was our in that was my involvement like I said I haven't really been involved in it for almost over two years now um I I'd left the whole thing now seeing what it's become now I mean my my own

personal experience was that I um it was it quite strange actually that I found despite you know doing let's say good work and and this and I just want to say as a side note and I know I'll come back to this but um the Dr radical or counter off like countering the radical narrative is something all duat and imams and Scholars and Community leaders are meant to be doing anyway and most people are engaged in that without I mean being they're not necessarily involved in a government program but they're doing it on their own anyway which is something we were doing on our own regardless of prevent and we were