After publishing his work The Shortest Way with Dissenters,
Defoe was arrested. He was charged with rebellious libel. Due to this he was
sentenced to stay in the pillory for three days. But this did not stop him to write. He even
made another ode while in prison.
In "My forbidden face", The fundamentalist Muslims who took power in Afghanistan at the time of the essay were known as The Taliban.
The Sharia is the muslim law, the Afghan Freedom Fighters and the Revolutionary Guard are names of paramilitary organizations.