¿who is Dihia?
Heart of resistance amazigh to the Arab conquest
Kahina “priestess, soothsayer” is the nickname by which the Arab historians designate this Berber queen of the 7-8 ème centuries of the Christian era. According to same historians', its true name would be Dayhia girl of Matiya Ben Tifan or Damiya girl of Yunafiq.
One still finds Dihiya and Dîyya. One polemized much on the religion of Dihiya. Certain authors think that it is Jewish, because of his tribe, Djerawa, which, according to Ibn Khaldûn, was largely judaïsée at the 7th century. Others think that it was Christian drawing in that argument from its filiation (Matiy and Tifan are deformations of Mathieu and Théophane) but also from the name from Damiya which was undoubtedly a diminutive of the Latin name
Damiana. In fact, in the absence of precise information, one can slice neither for one nor for the other of these assumptions and Dihiya could be Jewish, Christian and even pagan. Moreover, a Moslem author, Al Malikî, write that during its retirement, Dihiya was accompanied by a large idol out of wooden, transferred onto a camel. It could be a question of a Berber divinity and not inevitably, as one wrote, of a statue of Christ or the Virgin Mary.
At all events, Dihiya was a queen authentically Berber. When it appeared on the scene, it was to be already old. She would have reigned nearly thirty five years on Aurès and would have died in 120 or 127 years. This longevity is perhaps exaggerated but it is not incredible when one knows the strength and the force of the Berber ones.
According to AI Waqidî, it is the death of Kusila which determined Dihiya to deliver the war to the Arabs. But it had already taken part, at the sides of the
Berber prince, the battle of Tehuda during which was killed 'Uqba Ibn afi' ê (683).
Caliph 'Abd Al Mâlîk charged the governor of Egypt H' asân Ben Nu' mân, to reduce the revolt to the Maghreb. He started himself in year 69 of Hégire (688-689) and, after having taken Carthage
and driven out the Byzantines, he took the road of Aurès.
“H' asân, written Ibn Khadûn, required who was the most frightening prince among the Berber ones, and having learned that it was Kahina, woman which ordered with the powerful tribe of Djerawa, it walked against her and discussed the edge of the Miskiana river.”
The meeting took place on the Nini wadi, in the north of Khenchla: the Berber troops which were downstream threw on the Arabs who were upstream and cut them in
parts. In remembering this defeat, the Arabs called the wadi Nini, Nahr Al bala', the river of misfortunes. And the evidence was not finished for them. After seeing them forced to escape,
Dihiya continued them and fought them again. It obliged them to leave Ifriqya and to take refuge, on the order of caliph 'Abd Al Malîk, in the province of Tripoli.
Dihiya returned to it and, in a gesture of generosity, it took under its protection one of its Arab prisoners, Khâlid Ben Yâzid. It gave him the centre and, simulating breast feeding, it made
of him her adoptive son.
In 698, H' asân Ben Nu' mân returned with reinforcements, it dispersed the troops of Dihiya and seized Carthage. The Arab general sowed the discord among the Berber ones, pushing a part of them to give up the old queen. This one, far from discouraging itself, continued the fight with the men who remained to him faithful. Feeling the end to approach and wanting to safeguard 1 ' future, it recommended to its sons to convert with Islam and to change camp the historian Ibn Al Hakîm reports that it was addressed in these terms to Khalîd ibn Yâzid:
“I will perish and I recommend to you to better deal with tone of your two brothers than here. I fear, answered Khâlid that if you say true, they cannot escape dead - That not! one of them even will enjoy, at the Arabs of a prestige larger than it does not have any today. Leave, ensures you of the life of my sons!”
It did not know that in this moment there, Khâlid was going to betray it. Whereas it was on the point of delivering combat again, it had informed H' asân its
positions, by sending to him a message dissimulated in bread.
The combat took place with the foot of Aurès. Dihiya, about to be beaten, tried to take refuge in a Byzantine citadel of the area of Biskra but its adversary pursued it and pushed it front. The
last battle would have proceeded in Tarfa, a locality to about fifty kilometers in the north of Tobna. According to the tradition, Kahina was killed in front of a well which carries since its
name: Bîr Al Kahîna, the well of Kahina.
Its head was sliced and sent like trophy of war to the caliph. Its two sons which had passed to Islam had the life saves and Ibn Al Nu' mân named one of them ordering his troops, thus carrying
out the prophecy of his mother. The Arabs could thus reconcile the Berber ones who converted themselves into mass with Islam.
Kahina was shown by the Arab authors to have practised the scorched earth policy: about to be overcome, it would have preferred to burn the cities, the villages and harvests rather than to give
up them with the enemy. In fact Byzacène, theatre of the combat of Kahina and Arabs, were for a long time delivered to plundering with the incursions of the Arabs. By showing the Berber heroin of
this fixed price the Arab historians wanted to undoubtedly discredit it and justify nicknames of “priestess” and “witch” that they had given him.
