He might have been either the sacred ruler or kende of the Hungarians, or their military leader or gyula, although most details of his life are debated by historians, because different sources contain contradictory information.

Accordingly, in Róna-Tas's view, Árpád succeeded Levedi as sacred ruler, or kende, which enabled his father to preserve his own position as the actual leader of the Hungarians, or gyula.

[4][16][17] It narrates that the Byzantine Emperor Leo VI the Wise (r. 886–912) sent his envoy Nicetas Sclerus to the Hungarians in 894 or 895 "to give presents" and incite them against the Bulgarian Empire.

[1][25][26] Engel, Kristó and Molnár, who accept the reliability of this report, wrote that Álmos's death was a ritual murder, similar to the sacrifice of the Khazar khagans in case of a disaster affecting their people.

[1][24][27] In contrast with them, Róna-Tas states that even if the report on Álmos's murder "reflects true event, the only possible explanation would be that Árpád or someone in his entourage" killed the aged prince.

[29][30] Árpád's name "is completely unknown" to all sources written in East Francia, which was one of the main powers of the Carpathian Basin at the turn of the 9th and 10th centuries.

[10] According to Kristó and other historians, these sources suggest that Kurszán must have been the gyula commanding the Hungarian forces, while Árpád succeeded his murdered father as the sacred kende.

[10][33] In contrast to nearly contemporaneous sources, Hungarian chronicles written centuries after the events—for instance, the Gesta Hungarorum and the Illuminated Chronicle—emphasize Árpád's pre-eminent role in the conquest of the Carpathian Basin.

[35] This chronicle also emphasizes that Tétény, one of the heads of the seven Hungarian tribes, acquired "the land of Transylvania for himself and his posterity" only after Árpád had authorized him to conquer it.

Next day, Prince Árpád and all his leading men with all the warriors of Hungary entered the city of King Attila and they saw all the royal palaces, some ruined to the foundations, others not, and they admired beyond measure the stone buildings and were happier than can be told that they had deserved to take without fighting the city of King Attila, of whose line Prince Árpád descended.

They feasted every day with great joy in the palace of King Attila, sitting alongside one another, and all the melodies and sweet sounds of zithers and pipes along with all the songs of minstrels were presented to them ...

[42] If the Gesta's report on his funeral is reliable, Árpád was buried "at the head of a small river that flows through a stone culvert to the city of King Attila" where a village, Fehéregyháza, developed near Buda a century later.

[46] The following is a family tree presenting Árpád's ancestors and his descendants to the end of the 10th century:[46] *Liüntika and Tarkatzus are supposed to have been identical.