The game can probably best be described as a wargame, played with chess pieces. Apart from the chess pieces, you need a deck of cards. This seems to bring a lot of luck in the game. The value of the card tells with how many and what pieces the player can move. Hence, a player could possibly move many pieces in a row, before the opponent gets a turn.
Pieces represent forces of the European or Saracen army.
Then, when pieces meet, a battle is fought, and pieces take hits, depending on the strength of the attacker and the outcome of a dice roll. When the hitpoints are run out, then the piece is eliminated. I'm not sure. It has so many of the elements of the classical wargames in it, and mostly differs from that kind of games by its more abstract setting, and its board consisting of squares instead of hexes. With chess, it has in common that the main materials needed for playing the game are the chess board and pieces, and that taking the king still is the object of the game.