Kahina

Al-Kahina (Arabic: الكاهنة, romanized: al-Kāhina, lit. 'the priestess'), also known as Dihya, was a Berber warrior-queen of the Aurès (present-day Algeria) and a religious and military leader who lived during the 7th century.

Al-Kahina is known to have united various Berber tribes under her leadership to fight against the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb, leading the indigenous North African defense of the region then known as Numidia. She fought in multiple battles, notably defeating Umayyad forces in the Battle of Meskiana. Afterwards, she became the uncontested ruler of the whole Maghreb region, and remained so until being decisively defeated at the Battle of El Jem.

There are various accounts of the circumstances surrounding her death, but she is thought to have died in modern-day Algeria towards the end of the 7th century, or early-8th century. For five years Al-Kahina ruled a sovereign Berber state from the Aurès Mountains to the oasis of Ghadames (698–703). She is considered one of the most famous figures in the history of the Berber resistance to the Arab conquest. Her legacy has been retold through oral tradition since her lifetime. There are various written accounts of her from precolonial and postcolonial perspectives.

Her name was "Dihya" or "Dahya". Her title was cited by Arabic-language sources as al-Kāhina (the priestess soothsayer) (Arabic: الكاهنة). This was the nickname given to by her Muslim opponents because of her alleged ability to foresee the future.

Over three centuries after her death, Tunisian hagiographer al-Mālikī seems to have been among the first to state she resided in the Aurès Mountains. There is some debate about which Berber tribe Al-Kahina originated from. Seven centuries after her death, the pilgrim at-Tijani was told she belonged to the Lūwāta tribe. However, when the later historian Ibn Khaldun wrote his account, he placed her with the Jarawa tribe.

Various authors have claimed that Al-Kahina was Jewish, Christian, or of the traditional Berber pagan religion. Various sources suggest that she was of Jewish faith or that her tribe were Judaized Berbers. The idea that the Jarawa were Judaized comes from the medieval historian Ibn Khaldun.^{[citation needed]} Hirschberg and Talbi note that Ibn Khaldun seems to have been referring to a time before the advent of the late Roman and Byzantine empires, and a little later in the same paragraph seems to say that by Roman times "the tribes" had become Christianized.^{[citation needed]} As early as 1963, the Israeli historian H.Z. Hirschberg, while retranslating the text of Ibn Khaldun, questioned this interpretation, and in general the existence of large Jewish Berber tribes in the end of Antiquity. In the words of H.Z. Hirschberg, "of all the known movements of conversion to Judaism and incidents of Judaizing, those connected with the Berbers and Sudanese in Africa are the least authenticated."

According to al-Mālikī, Al-Kahina was accompanied in her travels by an "idol". Both Mohamed Talbi and Gabriel Camps interpreted this idol as a Christian icon, either of Christ, the Virgin, or a saint protecting the queen. However, Tunisian historian M'hamed Hassine Fantar held that this icon represented a separate Berber deity, suggesting she followed traditional Berber religion. However, Al-Kahina being a Christian remains the most likely hypothesis. According to various Muslim sources, al-Kāhina was the daughter of Tabat, or Yanfaq, though according to Ibn Khaldun she was the daughter Mātiya ibn Tifan.

In the 680s, after Kusaila was killed and the Kingdom of Altava declined, most of the Berbers joined Dihya and the Kingdom of the Aurès.