2OO	THE   KNIGHTS   TEMPLARS
troubles and trials and difficulties would be over as soon as
they reached Palestine, and that everyone would be rich,
everyone be happy. The Moslems, however, knew the Holy
Land, and to them it was no enchanted country.
Nor was there any deep patriotism to inspire the Moslems.
The twelfth and thirteenth centuries had no national feeling
as we know it to-day, and in any case the Moslems had taken
Palestine from the Byzantines and had never colonised it
greatly. To some Saracens it seemed intolerable that invaders
should hold Palestine, to some it seemed abominable that the
worshippers of Christ should not be exterminated by the
followers of Mahomet, but neither feeling was widespread.
Most attacks on the Latins were made by princes greedy for
land or plunder, or by leaders eager for glory, and there was
no popular rising on a large scale against the Christians.
Religious enmity played its part from time to time, but
among the Moslems it was usually fostered by a leader for his
own ends and was not a spontaneous movement. Noureddin
and Saladin had regarded themselves as engaged in a holy
war against the Christians $ so, too, had Bibarsj and among
their armies were thousands who believed that they fought
as a sacred duty to the Prophet. Most Moslems, however,
did not feel that their religion required them to massacre the
Christians or sweep them into the sea.
As no widespread religious antipathy existed among the
Moslems, the Franks were often given the chance to retain
their possessions because of the indifference of their enemies.
Islam wanted Jerusalem, but not with the same fierceness as
Christendom. Some of the other towns held by the Franks
were valuable as ports or markets, but they had no religious
significance to Islam, though they were holy to the Christians.
The Moslems were attracted principally by the wealth of the
Latin lands. Under the Christian rule Palestine was one of
the most prosperous countries in the world. It was better
cultivated than it had been for centuries before the invasion