Dihya

Daya Ult Yenfaq Tajrawt
Kahina / Dihya / Tihya
Dihya memorial in Khenchela, Algeria
Reign	Early seventh century
Died	703 AD Tabarka
Burial	Khenchela

Dihya or Kahina (Berber: Daya Ult Yenfaq Tajrawt, ⴷⵉⵀⵢⴰ Dihya, or ⴷⴰⵎⵢⴰ Damya) was a Berber warrior queen and a 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.

Origins and religion

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).^[1] Her title was cited by Arabic-language sources as al-Kāhina (the priestess soothsayer). This was the nickname given to by her Muslim opponents because of her alleged ability to foresee the future.

She was born into the Jrāwa Zenata tribe^[2] in the early 7th century.

For five years she ruled a free Berber state from the Aurès 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 Aures.^[3]

Accounts from the 19th century on claim she was of Jewish religion or that her tribe were Judaized Berbers.^[4] According to al-Mālikī, she was accompanied in her travels by an "idol", possibly an icon of the Virgin Mary or one of the Christian saints,^[5] but certainly not something associated with Jewish religious customs.

The idea that the Jrāwa were Judaized comes from the medieval historian Ibn Khaldun, who named them among a number of such tribes. 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" (presumably those he had listed before) had become Christianized.^[6] 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. Whatever has been written on them is extremely questionable."^[7] Hirschberg further points out that in the oral legends of Algerian Jews, "Kahya" was depicted as an ogre and persecutor of Jews.

Over four centuries after her death, Tunisian hagiographer al-Mālikī seems to have been among the first to state she resided in the Aurès Mountains. Just seven centuries after her death, the pilgrim at-Tijani was told she belonged to the Lūwāta tribe.^[8] When the later historian Ibn Khaldun came to write his account, he placed her with the Jrāwa tribe.

According to various Muslim sources, al-Kāhinat was the daughter of Tabat, or some say Mātiya.^[9] These sources depend on tribal genealogies, which were generally concocted for political reasons during the 9th century.^[10]

Ibn Khaldun records many legends about Dihyā. A number of them refer to her long hair or great size, both legendary characteristics of sorcerers. She is also supposed to have had the gift of prophecy and she had three sons, which is characteristic of witches in legends. Even the fact that two were her own and one was adopted (an Arab officer she had captured) was an alleged trait of sorcerers in tales. Another legend claims that in her youth, she had supposedly freed her people from a tyrant by agreeing to marry him and then murdering him on their wedding night. Virtually nothing else of her personal life is known.

Conflicts and legends

Dihya succeeded Caecilius as the war leader of the Berber tribes in the 680s and opposed the encroaching Arab Islamic armies of the Umayyad Dynasty. Hasan ibn al-Nu'man marched from Egypt and captured the major Byzantine city of Carthage and other cities (see Muslim conquest of North Africa). Searching for another enemy to defeat, he was told that the most powerful monarch in North Africa was "the Queen of the Berbers" (Arabic: malikat al-barbar) Dihyā, and accordingly marched into Numidia. In 698, the armies met near Meskiana^[11] in the present-day province of Oum el-Bouaghi at the Battle of Meskiana (or "battle of camels") in Algeria.^[12] She defeated Hasan so soundly that he fled Ifriqiya and holed up in Cyrenaica (Libya) for four or five years. Realizing that the enemy was too powerful and bound to return, she was said to have embarked on a scorched earth campaign, which had little impact on the mountain and desert tribes, but lost her the crucial support of the sedentary oasis-dwellers. Instead of discouraging the Arab armies, her desperate decision hastened defeat.^[13]

The story of the Kahina is told by a variety of cultures, and each story often offers a different, or even contradictory, perspective. For example, the story is used to promote feminism beliefs. Additionally, it is even told by Arabs to promote their own nationalism. For the Arabs, they told the story in a perspective that made the Kahina seem like a sorcerer, all in an attempt to discredit her. Some Arab historians took it even farther by saying that the Kahina eventually tried to have her sons adopt Islam as their religion. Another group that told the story of the Kahina was the French.The story of the Kahina was told to paint colonialism in a positive light. The story was told with a message saying that it represented the freeing of Berbers from the Arabs.^[14]

Another, lesser known account of Dihyā claimed that she had an interest in early studies of desert birds. While this view may or may not be plausible, some evidence has been recovered at the site of her death place, modern-day Algeria. Several fragments of early parchment with a painting of a bird on them were found, although there's no way to conclude the fragments were hers. However, it is possible that she began her interest while in Libya, as the painting was of a Libyan bird species.

Defeat and death

Hasan eventually returned and, aided by communications with the captured officer "Khalid bin Yazid al-Qaysi" adopted by Dihya, defeated her at Tabarka (a locality in present-day Tunisia near the Algerian borders)^[15] about which there is some uncertainty.^[16] According to some accounts, Dihya died fighting the invaders, sword in hand, a warrior's death. Other accounts say she committed suicide by swallowing poison rather than be taken by the enemy. This final act occurred in the 690s or 700s, with 703 AD given as the most likely year.^[17] In that year, she was, according to Ibn Khaldun, 127 years old. This is evidently yet another of the many myths which surround her.

According to Muslim historians, her sons Bagay and Khanchla converted, and led the Berber army to Iberia. However, the historian Ibn al-Athīr says they died with their mother.

Legacy

In later centuries, Dihyā's legend was used to bolster the claims of Berbers in al-Andalus against Arab claims of ethnic supremacy—in the early modern age, she was used by French colonials, Berber nationalists, Arab Nationalists, North African Jews, North African feminists, and Maghrebi nationalists alike for their own didactic purposes.

In the present day, the image of the Kahina is constantly used by Berber activists to showcase how they, as a people, are strong and will not be conquered or diminished by other communities. Her face is often seen in graffiti and sculptures around Algeria to showcase their support for the progressive ideals she represents.While her true appearance is still unknown, artists have depicted her with certain aspects that reinforce the progressive movement she is known to represent. However, not all governments accept the ideals behind the Kahina. One statue of the Kahina in Baghaï was condemned by the government due to blasphemy. The president said that the Kahina represented the resistance of Islam, and thus, should be condemned.^[14]

Cultural references

• Author Manly Wade Wellman wrote a historical fantasy novel about her, titled Cahena.
• The TV series Relic Hunter (episode 64) The relic hunters recover an artifact that had belonged to Kahina. Kahina is seen in flashback scenes.
• The Xena: Warrior Princess episode "Legacy" provides a fictionalized story about Kahina (Alison Bruce) in northern Africa.

See also

• Umayyad conquest of North Africa
• Caecilius

Notes

Bibliography

• Ibn Khaldun, Kitāb al-Ibar. Usually cited as: Histoire des Berbères et des dynasties musulmanes de l'Afrique septentrionale, a French trans. by William McGuckin de Slane, Paul Geuthner, Paris, 1978. This 19th-century translation should now be regarded as obsolete. There is a more accurate modern French translation by Abdesselam Cheddadi, Peuples et Nations du Monde: extraits des Ibar, Sindbad, Paris, 1986 & 1995. Hirschberg (1963) gives an English translation of the section where Ibn Khaldun discusses the supposed Judaized Jarāwa.
• Hannoum, Abdelmajid. (2001). Post-Colonial Memories: The Legend of the Dihyā, a North African Heroine (Studies in African Literature). ISBN 0-325-00253-3. This is a study of the legend of the Dihyā in the 19th century and later. The first chapter is a detailed critique of how the legend of the Dihyā emerged after several transformations from the 9th century to the 14th.
• H. Z. Hirschberg, 'The Problem of the Judaized Berbers', Journal of African History, 4 (1963), 313-339.
• H.Z. Hirschberg, A History of the Jews in North Africa. E.J. Brill, Leiden, 1974 (2nd ed., Eng. trans.).
• al-Mālikī, Riyād an-Nufūs. Partial French trans. (including the story of the Dihyā) by H.R. Idris, 'Le récit d'al-Mālikī sur la Conquête de l'Ifrīqiya', Revue des Etudes Islamiques 37 (1969) 117-149. The accuracy of this translation has been criticised by Talbi (1971) and others.
• Modéran, Yves. (2005). Article 'Dihyā (Dihyā)', Encyclopédie Berbère vol. 27, p. 4102-4111. The most recent critical study of the historical sources.
• Talbi, Mohammed. (1971). Un nouveau fragment de l'histoire de l'Occident musulman (62-196/682-812) : l'épopée d'al Kahina. (Cahiers de Tunisie vol. 19 p. 19-52). An important historiographical study.
• at-Tijānī, Rihlat. Arabic text ed. by H.H. Abdulwahhab, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt, 1994. French trans. by A. Rousseau in Journal Asiatique, section containing the story of the Dihyā is in n.s. 4, vol. 20 (1852) 57-208.