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The only Germanics in Spain were mostly elites/leaders/nobility/warlords. They really didn't leave that much of a genetic legacy in Spain, and the local population stayed basically the same.
I don't think Visigoths were purely Germanic anymore since they left Scandinavia 400 years before and roamed Eastern Europe and the Balkans all that time, mixing with Iranic tribes like the Alans and Sarmatians and all they encountered until they arrived at the Pyrenees.
Even the migration period didn't see the Visigoths replace the entirety of the peoples in Spain or the Vandals turn modern day Tunisia into a Germanic outlier in North Africa.
And the Arabs couldn't have conquered Spain if there was no infighting among Visigoths and if the standing army didn't consist of unwilling local slave conscripts. The Suebis were more based by comparison to the Visigoths.
Certain scholars like Stanley G. Payne have argued that ignorance on the part of Visigoths ensured the rapid acceptance of and conversion to Islam not only by the Wittizan aristocracy but also by the petty nobility and urban-dwelling commoners.
The issue is that they didn't understand that Islam was a fundamentally different and irreconcilable religion, but believed it was merely a new form of Christianity.
This would make sense in particular because Catholicism had not been fully accepted by the Visigoths, who remained in large part Arians (especially those who supported Wittiza - much of the conflict between Wittizan aristocracy and Roderic was caused by the fact that Wittizans was Arian and Roderic was Catholic).
Remember what St. John of Damascus said about Mohammed: that he got most of his ideas from an Arian monk.
Originally Posted by Dorian
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