[7] The date of 25 February 1003 comes from the only Arabic source to mention the battle, Ibn al-Faraḍī, who records that Sa‘īd bin Mūsā of Elvira "died in the battle of al-Māša near Balagî the Thursday ten days before the end of the month of Rabī’ al-Thānī in the year 393", that is of the Islamic calendar, being 25 February 1003 in the Anno Domini system.
[9] Félix Hernández Jiménez dated the battle of Albesa to the summer of 1003 because he connected it with the seizure of the castle of Castellolí—mentioned only in one Christian source—by Abd al-Malik al-Muzaffar, the Córdoban hajib.
[10] The Bayān al-Mugrib of Ibn Iḍārī records how Abd al-Malik was marching through lightly populated country toward Barcelona on first of Shawwal (3 August), and that sometime after this date he camped at al-Baṭḥā (possibly Albesa).
[19] The earlier date (February) coincides better with the timing of Berengar's death, which occurred at Albesa more certainly than Ermengol's capture.
The presence of Berengar at the battle suggest that of his brothers, Bernard I of Besalú and Wifred II of Cerdagne, also.
[20] According to the Crónica d'Alaó renovada, count Isarn I of Ribagorza died fighting the Moors at Monzón in 1003.
[20] The marginality of al-Faraḍī's mention of the battle and the general accuracy of the history of Ibn Khaldūn (his source, Ibn Ḥayyān, was a contemporary), suggest that the battle of Albesa was a separate event from the capture of Ermengol, which took place on Abd al-Malik's punitive expedition against the Catalan counties.
[24] Mahmud Ali Makki, the modern editor and interpreter of the Arabic poet Ibn Darrāȳ al-Qasṭallī, suggests that his poem 122 treats the expedition of Abd al-Malik as a response to certain Catalan penetrations of caliphal territory after the death of Almanzor.