Biography

Fiyaz Mughal continues to be an active member of society, serving as an advocate and expert on community cohesion, hate crime and anti-extremism projects

Fiyaz Mughal was born in Uganda. His family were forcibly removed from Uganda with thousands of Asians who were targeted by the brutal dictator – Idi Amin. Fiyaz Mughal’s family fled the country and became refugees as they arrived in the United Kingdom in 1972. After 6 months, his family made their way to Nairobi, where Fiyaz Mughal lived for the first 10 years of his childhood. When Nairobi also became unsafe after a brutal military coup, Fiyaz Mughal’s family relocated to England in 1983. After completing his secondary education, Fiyaz Mughal went on to study at the University College in London where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science honours degree in Neuroscience. He continued his education, obtaining Master of Education and MBA Executive Diploma from the University of North London. Fiyaz is also a qualified mental health professional and specialises in working with clients who have a range of anxiety conditions and phobias. He has an ongoing interest in mental health vulnerabilities and radicalisation and extremism and Fiyaz is a Member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (MBACP).

Following graduation, Fiyaz Mughal began his career working with the Citizens Advice Bureaux in London. He went on to work as a lecturer at two different further education colleges and became involved in British politics in 1999. Standing for election as a local councillor, Fiyaz was elected in two areas in Oxford and London. Between 2002-2004 Fiyaz served as an elected councillor for the Hollywell ward in Oxford City Council & he served from 2006-2010 on Haringey Council in North London.

From 2004-2006, Fiyaz Mughal served as the project director for Diverse Trust, a group seeking to create meaningful connections between Muslim and Jewish Youth. Fiyaz Mughal also served as the Chief Executive officer for Enfield Citizens Advice Bureaux before moving on to found Faith Matters in 2005 and Tell MAMA in 2012.

In these two organisations that Fiyaz Mughal began, he sought to develop social cohesion and work on anti-extremism projects. These were conducted through the work of Faith Matters, with Tell MAMA working on supporting victims of anti-Muslim hate and in monitoring, mapping and measuring incidents across the United Kingdom. For his work, he was named as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2009. His work also led to international projects countering Islamist extremism in the Middle East and in South East Asia. 

For over twenty years, Fiyaz has supported, influenced and helped to implement counter-extremism projects that have challenged far right and Islamist ideologies. This has been separate to his work in countering anti-Muslim hate through Tell MAMA.  

In Tell MAMA (which stands for Measuring Anti-Muslim Attacks), Fiyaz encouraged people to report in anti-Muslim hate incidents and it became the first nationally supported projected monitoring and measuring anti-Muslim hate and thereby became a trailblazer project in this regard. It became the ‘go-to’ project for successive British governments to consult with, to find out the state of anti-Muslim hate in the United Kingdom. 

Other organisations that Fiyaz founded included Muslims Against Antisemitism, which was cited by the former Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the Rt. Hon Michael Gove, for tackling antisemitism. This citation took place at the Despatch Box in Parliament and Fiyaz also founded the annual No2H8 Awards that has become a regular national event honouring those in communities who challenge hate, prejudice and intolerance.  

Further to his successful career, Fiyaz Mughal is an active volunteer, and has served many charitable organisations over the years. He has taken on roles such as being the Chair of charities such as Alcohol Change U.K. Fiyaz also chaired the Crown Prosecution Service’s ‘Community Accountability Forum‘ for many years and this reviewed a range of areas that the CPS worked on and which had significant impacts on the well-being of communities.

Fiyaz feels passionately about challenging the status quo and in ensuring that within faith, the human development and growth of people’s critical analysis and self-confidence grows. This also means exploring what faith means and how it means so very different things to so many people.

Fiyaz Mughal continues to be an active member of society and maintains a keen interest in supporting stronger cohesion between British Muslim and Jewish communities.