Dihya

Daya Ult Yenfaq Tajrawt
Kahina / Dihya / Tihya
Dihya memorial in Khenchela, Algeria
Reign	Early 7th century
Burial	Khenchela

Dihya or Kahina (Berber: Daya Ult Yenfaq Tajrawt, ⴷⵉⵀⵢⴰ Dihya, or ⴷⴰⵎⵢⴰ Damya) was a Berber warrior queen, religious and military leader who led indigenous resistance to the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb, the region then known as Numidia. She was born in the early 7th century and died around the end of the 7th century in modern-day Algeria.

Her personal name is one of these variations: Daya, Dehiya, Dihya (ⴷⵉⵀⵢⴰ), Dahya or Damya (with Arabic spelling it is difficult to distinguish between these variants). Her title was cited by Arabic-language sources as al-Kāhina (the priestess soothsayer). This was the nickname used by her Muslim opponents because of her reputed ability to foresee the future.

She was born in the early 7th century. Arab historians wrote that she was a Jewish "sorcerer", and because of this fact she was able to defeat the Arab Islamic invaders who retreated to eastern Tripolitania.

For five years she ruled a free berber state from the Aures mountains to the oasis of Gadames (695-700 AD).

But the Arabs, commanded by Musa bin Nusayr, returned with a strong army and defeated her. She fought at the El Djem Roman amphitheater but finally was killed in a combat near a well that still bears her name, Bir al Kahina in the Aures, and her head was sent to the caliph as a trophy.

Accounts from the 19th century on claim she was of Jewish religion or that her tribe were Judaized Berbers. According to al-Mālikī relates that she was accompanied in her travels by an "idol", possibly an icon of the Virgin Mary or one of the Christian saints, but certainly not something associated with Jewish religious customs.