A widely circulated 400,000-casualty figure for the Saudi conquest was fabricated in the 1990s.

Evidence

Wahhabism has been criticized by traditional Muslims as a deviant sect sometimes in Satanic terms. Both Sunnis and Shias do not view Wahhabism as a revival or reform movement, but as a separate sect. It is not so much strict and uncompromising as aberrant, going beyond the bounds of Islam in its restricted definition of tawhid (Islamic monotheistic tenets), and much too willing to commit takfir (excommunicate) Muslims found in violation of Wahhabi doctrines. According to some critics, during the second Wahhabi-Saudi conquest of the Arabian Peninsula, an estimated 400,000 were killed or wounded according to some estimates. However, the claim of the 400,000 casualties has been debunked in recent research and is regarded by academic scholars as an exaggerated figure which was fabricated during the 1990s. More reliable estimates place the number of dead and wounded between 10,000 and 25,000. — Wikipedia contributors, Wahhabism, 171

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies tawhid and takfir as the doctrinal hinges on which excommunication and violence turn.
• QUESTION: Who fabricated the 400,000 figure and to what polemical end? Worth tracing the citation chain.