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"The Iberian Peninsula was a fairly easy conquest for the Muslim armies.
Usually three interpretations have been advanced to explain it.
The Middle Ages saw it as the punishment of God for a society that had lost its ways.
St. Boniface in 746 pointed a finger at the spread of homosexual practices
as the cause of the loss of Spain to the Muslims. Modern historiography
has moved away from the medieval interpretation and seen the collapse of
Spain due to the internal decay of the Visigothic kingdom or as the
logical development of the Muslim policy of conquest.
Recently the Spanish scholar Pedro Chalmeta has combined the two interpretations."

"Spain fell because it was a state in "a deep crisis that affected the efficacy
and stability of its political, military, juridical, ecclesiastical, economical,
and social structures".... The Kingdom of Toledo had experienced in the
forty years before the invasion a series of rebellions and upheavals that
resulted in the disintegration of central authority and misgovernment
at every level. .... The government complicated matters with increasingly
harsh taxation and the devaluation of gold coins. It is not surprising that the
economic difficulties were reflected in the deterioration of quality of life.
Abortions became common; babies were left to die or were sold into slavery.
".... While the poverty level increased among the middle and lower classes,"

the rich tended to become richer as they extended their lands and gained legal control
over the poor, who often lost free status to become serfs. At the same time,
poverty pushed many to become bandits, others to seek safety as hermits
in locations far away from inhabited centers, others to seek spiritual refuge
in ancient cults from the pagan past, and others to choose the ultimate act
of despair, suicide.... Lack of loyalty and misbehavior were present at
all levels of life, even among the privileged people. The aristocrats were
ready to betray the loyalty that they had sworn to the crown; the kings
were unable to check the rapacious policies of their tax collectors and
of the nobility.... It was a condition that called either for disintegration
of central power or for the reception of any benevolent invader
who promised a better world."

"BARBARIANS, MARAUDERS, INFIDELS - The Ways of Medieval Warfare",
Antonio Santosuosso, Westview Press, Perseus Books Group (2004)