For his part, the Egyptian historian Ibn 'Abd al-Hakam, who wrote a century earlier, tells the same tale in his chronicle Futūh Miṣr (Ibn 'Abd al-Hakam 1974, p. 138) albeit with a slight variation. In his version, the pretence of anthropophagy, aimed at frightening the Visigoths, is attributed without distinction to all soldiers he calls 'Muslims' (ibid.). We also find a similar scene related by the Spanish historian Ibn al-Kūtiyya (1994, p. 77), that he places in the city of Cartagena. Aside from their variations, these narratives present a common thread and an undeniable connection. Clearly, the brief mention of African fighters seems to refer to an original source. Despite its biased insinuations, the engagement of these soldiers at the heart of Western Europe is clear. The silence of Ibn 'Abd al-Hakam and Ibn al-Kūtiyya on the presence of Sudanese elements remains to be explained. Did these authors compile the same chronicle? Or have their testimonies been taken from separate works?  
Certainly, Iṣhāq ibn al-Husayn (op. cit., p. 414) offers us the only narrative that can be credited with preserving this fragment of an apparently ancient chronicle. Indeed, he is the only one to mention a valuable indicator which, while breaking with the course of a traditional historiography, paves the way for a less polarized reading of the central position of the Arabs and their relentless conflict with the Christian West. It is also known that several tens of thousands of Africans were subsequently employed in Spain and Portugal, under the aegis of Umayyad princes (136-423 AH/756-1031 CE), Taifa lords (423-83 AH/1031-90 CE) and the Almoravid (448-542 AH/1056-1147 CE), Almohad (525-668 AH/11301269 CE) and Castilian ( $718 \mathrm{AH}-1318 \mathrm{CE}-$ ) kings.