In prison, I learned a lot about the Munafiqeen. Often I would see people personifying ayaat from the Qur’an about nifaaq; almost duplicating the behaviors we read about in the Seerah of people like Abdullah bin Ubayy bin Salool. It was remarkable
It goes without saying that informers have an overwhelming degree of nifaaq in their hearts, and, over the course of my various plans for escape, obviously, I had to learn a great deal about informers.
There are a few specific things I noticed. Whenever I would get in trouble with the police because of an informer, like when they would catch me with a mobile phone, or a hand-drawn map of the facility; I would get sent to solitary confinement for a certain period, and I could always know who had informed against me because that person would always be the nicest one to me when I returned to the cell block. He would give me tea or coffee, talk very sympathetically, and curse the informers in jail.
This was not, of course, because he felt guilty; it was because he wanted to make sure I did not suspect him, and informers (like all munafiqeen) derive great pleasure from thinking that they are fooling everyone.
They have a sickness in their brains which makes them think that reality is whatever people believe about them, and not that it is what Allah Knows about them.
Of course, another thing you notice very quickly is that the authorities, although they do not respect their informers, they are extremely hostile to anyone who exposes them. They will bring down the full force at their disposal against anyone who undermines their spies and collaborators.
This can include causing other inmates to ostracize you. They can do this by simply conveying (through their informers) that you are under suspicion, and so anyone close to you may be incriminated.
The always tremendous egos of hypocrites and informers causes them to mistake the authorities’ defense of their system of spying for defense of them personally, and they feel they are powerful and protected. The reality, however, is that the authorities despise their informers, and see them as nothing more than sponges that soak up information; they just despise anyone more who identifies who the sponges are.
Informers in prison, as in the outside world, can also often be identified by their inexplicable access to wealth and privilege. In jail that means easy jobs in the canteen or workshop, and open possession of contraband; outside, it can often mean access to mysterious sources of funding.
They inevitably reveal themselves, however, because the nature of their work means that power will eventually back them up. An accusation that begins on the tongue of a collaborator and it then comes out the mouth of the authorities, cannot but reveal the collaborator’s identity.
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