SIMANCAS 939

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The Battle of Simancas (also called Alhandega or al-Khandaq) was a military battle that started on July 19, 939, in the Iberian Peninsula between the troops of the Christian king Ramiro II of Leon and Muslim caliph Abd al-Rahman III near the walls of the city of Simancas. The battle decided the control of the lands of the Duero.

The battle unfolded after the army of Abd al-Rahman III launched toward the northern Christian territories in 934. Abd al-Rahman III had gathered a large army of Moorish fighters, with the help of the Moorish governor of Zaragoza, Abu Yahya. The Christian king Ramiro II led the counterattack with an army constituted of his own troops, those of the Count Fernan Gonzalez, the Navarrese under Garcia Sanchez I, the Kingdom of Galicia, and the Kingdom of Asturias.