[6] The Akhbar Majmu'ah in particular was upheld by Claudio Sánchez-Albornoz as a genuine eighth-century work surviving only in later copies, but this view has since been refuted.

[7] The French Orientalist Évariste Lévi-Provençal, on the other hand, advocated Ibn Hayyān as the supreme Muslim historian of the era (and of the battle).

[8] Among modern Anglo-American historians, Roger Collins, R. A. Fletcher, E. A. Thompson, and Kenneth Baxter Wolf are sceptical of the Arabic sources and rely more on the Mozarabic Chronicle.

[9] Archaeological evidence and two surviving lists of kings show that one Achila II ruled in the northeast of the kingdom at this time, but his relationship to Roderic is unknown.

Even with Roderic's sphere of influence (the southwest) and his capital Toledo, he was not unopposed after his "usurpation" (the Mozarabic Chronicle calls it an "invasion").

[10][11] The battle of Guadalete was not an isolated Berber attack but followed a series of raids across the Straits of Gibraltar from North Africa which had resulted in the sack of several south Iberian towns.

[20] According to Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam, writing around 860, Ṭāriq, commander of the Berber garrison of Tangiers, crossed the straits with ships supplied by a certain Count Julian (Arabic Ilyan), lord of Ceuta and "Alchadra" (Algeciras), and landed near Cartagena, which he captured and made his headquarters.

During his time in the peninsula it was racked by civil war (intestino furore confligeratur, "internal frenzy", to the Mozarabic chronicler), cities were razed, and many people were slaughtered in the general destruction.

If this discrepancy is solved by preferring the chronicler's order to his dating, then the battle occurred in 712 and the fall of Toledo later that same year.

[30] According to ʿAbd al-Ḥakam, Ṭāriq was marching from Cartagena to Córdoba—after defeating a Gothic army that tried to stop him—when he met Roderic in battle near Shedunya, probably modern Medina Sidonia.

[36] Joaquín Vallvé, studying toponymy, puts the engagement on the banks of the Guadarranque, which he says might derive from Wad al-Rinq (Roderic's river).

[38] The armies that met in battle on the day that decided the fate of the Gothic kingdom in Spain are not reliably described in the surviving records.

[39] This number is outrageously high; it complements the figure of 187,000 for the Muslims provided by the Ad Sebastianum version of the Chronicle of Alfonso III.

The defeat of the Visigothic army followed on the flight of the king's opponents, who had only accompanied the host "in rivalry", "deceitfully", and "out of ambition to rule" says the Mozarabic chronicler.

The metropolitan of Toledo, Sindered, fled the city at the coming of the Muslims, and remained for the rest of his life an exile in Rome.

[44] Within a decade all of the peninsula save the tiny Kingdom of Asturias and the mountain-dwelling Basques was under Muslims dominion and they had advanced beyond the Pyrenees as well.

If I perish after this, I will have had at least the satisfaction of delivering you, and you will easily find among you an experienced hero, to whom you can confidently give the task of directing you.

But should I fall before I reach to Roderick, redouble your ardor, force yourselves to the attack and achieve the conquest of this country, in depriving him of life.

[47]According to later traditions, Iberian Jews, progressively disenfranchised under the rule of Christian monarchs and bishops,[48] provided fighters to augment the Moorish forces.

Kaula al-Yahudi distinguished himself in the battle at the head of a mixed contingent of Jews and Berbers,[49] according to the compiler of the Akhbar Majmu'ah.

[28] Thompson remarks that "whatever the reason for the [Goths'] persecution [of the Jews], it may have contributed to the utter destruction of those who initiated and enforced it.

[52] The late ninth-century Chronica Prophetica indeed blames the Goths' defeat on their lack of penance for their sins: "The city of Toledo, victor of all peoples, succumbed as a victim to the triumphant Ishmaelites, and deserved to be subjected to them.

[56] According to one interpretation of the Urban-Julian legend, he was a Byzantine governor of Ceuta who joined with the Arabs to raid the southern coasts of Iberia in 710 with Ṭārif.

[28] Glick has suggested that Ṭārif is an invention designed to explain the etymology of Tarifa, the ancient Julia Traducta, of which "Julian" was probably the (unnamed) Gothic count (comes julianus).

All mention that it was made from endowments to churches by kings and wealthy Roderic's golden sandal was allegedly recovered from the Guadalete river.