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Comparison of casualties in military conflicts in early Islam and the 20th Century
The book "Battlefields of the Prophet" by the renowned scholar Muhammad Hamidullah , lists the number of people killed in battle on both sides in all the engagements led by the Prophet. The total number of combatants killed were 463, out of these 200 killed were those fighting for Islam.
The Prophet was far above the regular human emotions of revenge, hatred, greed or domination as the driving motivation in the conflicts that he was involved in or was forced into. His main concern was to win over people to the truth. He did not see his enemies as irredeemable souls, but as potential forces for the good, for their own selves and for others. And he gave them the opportunity and the space to transform themselves.
Casualties in the main military expeditions led by the Prophet
| Engagement | Opposing force |
Opposition killed |
Muslim force |
Muslims killed |
| Badr | 950 | 70 | 313 | 14 |
| Uhud | 3,000 | 22 | 700 | 70 |
| Khandaq | 12,000 | 8 | 3,000 | 6 |
| Khaibar | 20,000 | 93 | 1,500 | 15 |
| Mu'ta | 100,000 | 3,000 | 13 | |
| Hunain | 70 | 12,000 | 70 | |
| Taif | 12,000 | 12 |
| War and Conflicts of the twentieth century | Military & Civilian deaths |
| Belgian repression in the Congo Free State 1886-1908 | 6,500,000 |
| First World War 1914-1918 | 8,500,000 |
| Russian Civil War 1917-1922 | 2,825,000 |
| Stalin's regime 1924-53 | 20,000,000 |
| Italian campaign in Abyssinia 1935-1936 | 160,000 |
| Second World War 1939-1945 | 71,000,000 |
| Post-War Expulsion of Germans from East Europe 1945-47 | 2,384,000 |
| Chinese Civil War 1945-1949 | 3,000,000 |
| Mao Zedong's regime 1949-1975 | 40,000,000 |
| Korean War 1950-1953 | 1,200,000 |
| Tito's Regime 1944-80 | 250,000 |
| French repression in Algeria 1954-1962 | 1,000,000 |
| Vietnam War 1965-1973 | 1,033,000 |
| Cambodia, Khmer Rouge 1975-1978 | 1,500,000 |
| Soviet Union war against Afghanistan 1979-1989 | 2,000,000 |
| Iran-Iraq War 1980-88 | 1,000,000 |
| Gulf War 1990-1991 | 150,000 |
| Bosnia 1992-1995 | 280,000 |
| Sources: Britannica & WikiPedia and other Internet resources including Secondary Wars and Atrocities of the Twentieth Century |
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