HISTORY
Have any Muslims died while on active duty with the Armed Forces since the end of WW2?
Yes. From 1 August 1945 to 31 December 2021 (the latest data available), there were 45 deaths among UK armed forces personnel where their religion was recorded as either Muslim or Mohammedan on the Armed Forces Memorial database.
Since the end of World War 2, 7,190 UK armed forces personnel have died as a result of operations in medal earning theatres. From 1 August 1945 to 31 December 2021 (the latest data available), there were 6,770 deaths among UK armed forces personnel for whom no religion was recorded electronically. Further information may be available from personnel files held at the MOD central records facility or The National Archives at Kew. Of those for whom a religion was identified, 45 were recorded as either Muslim or Mohammedan.
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The Armed Forces Memorial (AFM) database was created to identify Service personnel whose names were and continue to be engraved on the Armed Forces Memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum. If you want to research a particular name go to https://www.gov.uk/search-armed-forces-memorial-roll-of-honour.
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The medal earning theatres in which armed forces personnel have served since the end of WW2 are:
Palestine
Malaya
Berlin Airlift
Yangtze
Korea (UN)
Canal Zone
Kenya
Cyprus
Near East (Suez)
Arabian Peninsula
Congo (ONUC)
Brunei
Borneo
Cyprus
Cyprus (UNFICYP)
Radfan
South Arabia
Malay Peninsula
Northern Ireland
Dhofar
Rhodesia
South Atlantic (Falklands)
Gulf 1
Air Operations Iraq
Cambodia (UNAMIC/UNTAC)
Balkans (NATO) (UN)
Sierra Leone
Afghanistan
Iraq
Libya (NATO)
Iraq & Syria
Malawi
3 September 1945 to 30 June 1948
16 June 1948 to 31 July 1960
25 June 1948 to 6 October 1949
20 April 1949 to 31 July 1949
27 June 1950 to 27 July 1954
16 October 1951 to 19 October 1954
21 October 1952 to 17 November 1956
1 April 1955 to 18 April 1959
31 October 1956 to 22 December 1956
1 January 1957 to 30 June 1960
10 July 1960 to 30 June 1964
8 December 1962 to 23 December 1962
24 December 1962 to 11 August 1966
21 December 1963 to 26 March 1964
27 March 1964 to present
25 April 1964 to 31 July 1964
1 August 1964 to 30 November 1967
17 August 1964 to 11 August 1966
14 August 1969 to 31 July 2007
1 October 1969 to 3 September 1976
1 December 1979 to 20 March 1980
2 April 1982 to 21 October 1982
2 August 1990 to 7 March 1991
16 July 1991 to 30 April 2003
1 October 1991 to 30 September 1993
1 July 1992 to present
5 May 2000 to 31 July 2002
11 September 2001 to August 2021
20 January 2003 to 22 May 2011
19 March 2011 to 31 October 2011
August 2014 to present
26 February 2019 to present
Sources
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Ibid, p.3, Table 1
Ministry of Defence, Defence Statistics Health, Freedom of Information FOI2022/01388 dated 10 February 2022
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