Islamic authorities accorded Christians dhimmi status, which allowed them to practice their religion with certain restrictions, such as a prohibition on public displays of faith.

Juan Tamayo de Salazar, in his nationalistic Martyrologium Hispanum, mistakenly defends Sisenandus was born in modern-day Spain, under the erroneous premise that Pax Augusta was an ancient name for the city of Badajoz.

[4] Eulogius says he was from Beja ("denique leuita sanctissimus Sisenandus ex Pacensi oppido ortus"), and thence went to Córdoba as a young clerical student to conduct his studies at the Basilica of Saint Acisclus.

In the late 16th century, when Francisco de Reynoso y Baeza was Bishop of Córdoba, the city of Beja sent a delegation of procurators to ask the relics of Saint Sisenandus — or, at least, part of them — be brought to his birthplace; both the bishop and Philip II of Spain judged it a suitably devout demonstration of piety, and allowed a radial bone to be brought to Beja in the year 1600.

[4] As this chapel fell into disrepair and, eventually, abandonment, the relics were transferred to an altar in the Cathedral of St. James the Great, where they are kept to this day.