[3] The Akhbār majmūʿa records how, during the Abbasid Revolution, an army of ten thousand under a certain Balj marched to al-Andalus to support the Umayyad emir Abd ar-Rahman I.
Likewise, the anonymous compiler borrows elements, such as Roderic's alleged kidnapping of the daughter of Count Julian, from other classical sources, namely the Aeneid and the Iliad.
[4] The Spanish historian Ramón Menéndez Pidal argued that since the anonymous author was clearly aiming for historical accuracy, he should be generally trusted, even on the doubtful episode of Count Julian's daughter.
[5] The Akhbār majmūʿa makes no mention of Jews in connection with the Arab conquest.
[3] Abū Ghālib Tammām ibn ʿAlḳama (died 811) may have been an important source for the section of the Akhbār called the "Syrian chronicle", which covers the period 741–788.