The monastery lies in the confluence of the Ortiz and Piedra Rivers, in a land of thermal springs, such as Alhama and Jaraba. Followers of Islam sought to establish their cities on the rivers banks because their economy was based on agriculture, which was performed through laboring irrigated lands. This is why they chose to live on low lands and did not effectively occupy the higher areas of the Pyrenees, where they merely controlled the traffic of people and goods through fortified steps at the entrance of the valleys. This is also the reason why the noble and Christian clergy, who would be the most likely to suffer because of the arrival of Islam, had to settle on the northern regions of the Iberian Peninsula, where they began to set up churches and monasteries that would sustain those early Christian communities.