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aside from a few notables like Richard of Champagne, the saracen muslims were twice as violent as the crusaders.
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Not entirely true. They only seemed more violent because pretty much any crime that you could commit had a punishment that involved execution or amputation.
The Muslims conquered the Holy Land, but they were perfectly happy to allow Christians to come and go as they pleased and even allowed the Christians to continue practicing their religion. It wasn't until some crazy Muslim governor decided to burn down that temple in Bethlehem (I forget what it was called.
) that the Christians in Europe got all fired up and ran off to "liberate" the Holy Land.
As it turned out, the Crusaders ended up killing more people than the Muslims did, and "liberating" included looting, pillaging and killing the peasants (including large numbers of Christians).
History also seems to forget that the Muslims rebuilt the temple that the crazy guy ordered burnt down, too. :/