Kahena

Kahena , of its true name Dihya or Dahia (Tifinaghe: ), is a warlike queen Berbère of the tribe Djrawa Zénète, which fought the Islamic expansion in North Africa at the 7th century. It is the principal figure, with Kusayla (chief of the tribes of the Awarbas), of Berber resistance in North Africa to the advanced Moslem troops between 695 with 705. At the dawn of the arrival of the Arabs in North Africa, the political and administrative of the Berbérie Orientale and Central unit (the Aurès, current Algeria) was mainly realized by Kusayla. With its death in 688, Dihya takes the head of resistance. The Berber tribe of Banou Ifren Zénète will be the first to defend the territories at the side of Kahina. Dihya will leave victorious and triumphing over the war. After the reinforcement of the Moslem troops, Dihya will recommend Islam with its sons before its disappearance by adopting a Moslem (Khalid).

According to the remarks of Abu Yazid el Ifrini that Ibn Khaldoun will pay thereafter, he will say that the Berber ones have apostasy Islam twelve times before especially adopting it in the tribe of Kahina (Zénète). little time after the death of the queen Dihia Kahina, Towards 711, Berber Zénète of the tribe of Kahina ordered by their chief Tarek Ibn Ziad will make the conquest of Andalusia at the side of the small Arab army Moslem ordered by Khalifs ommeyades which remained in life in the Maghreb. Also little time after the death of Kahina, Abou Qurra El Ifrini of the same tribe of Kahina (Zénète) will drive out all Arabic who remained in the Maghreb.

Course

Exit of the tribe of the Djerouas (Djerawa), a tribe of Zenata established in the Aurès (in the east of current the Algeria), like were the first kings (agellid, plural igelliden ) Berbères of Numidie - was elected or named with this load by the council of the confederation of the tribes. Dihya also proceeded to the reunification of the tribes of Eastern North Africa.

Whereas the Moslems already conquered a vast territory they butt against the resistance of the Byzantine (Christian), established primarily on the coasts and in particular with Carthage and Septum, but also that of the Berbères.

The Moslem troops directed by Hassan Ibn Numan sought to seize Carthage to have the Ifriqiya and to cut through a path towards the West. The king Kusayla or AKSIL (Lion into Berber) the Carthaginians and Dihya leagued to prevent this passage. Carthage ends up falling to the hands from the Moslem troops in 695 and Hassan Ibn Numan is made appoint governor of Ifriqiya. The Leonitos emperor recovers Carthage for three years. The only resistance which remained then was that of Dihya.

With the first battle, Dihya gained a victory over the troops of Ibn Numan in Miskyana, between Tebessa and Ain Beïda, in the area constantinoise):
In the valley, deserted and dry, Dihya decides to dissimulate its army there during the night, partly in the mountain, partly behind, its cavalry and its herds of camels, to take in ambush the troops of Ibn Numan. When the Arabs attack, they are accommodated by a rain of arrows drawn between the legs from the camels of the Berber ones. The Arabs are crushed. Aurésiens will continue them until Gabès. Dihya has just gained its more prestigious victory, that of Meskiana, than one will call “the battle of the camels”, and manages to push back the troops of the Caliph until in Tripolitaine. Ibn Numan will be again beaten in 695 meadows of Tabarqa by Dihya.

Ibn Numan deferred its efforts on Carthage in 699, that it begins again, with the control of the seas and the Western basin of the the Mediterranean. He then asked for a supplement of men to the caliph Ibn Marwan to attack Aurès, only rampart remaining. Knowing its imminent defeat, Dihya made practice the Politique ground burned in order to dissuade the invader to adapt the grounds, being alienated by there part of its people: Berber town, wandering sedentaries and of the campaigns.

Kahena engaged last once in the battle in 702 with Tabarqa. The defeat of the troops of Dihya is partly due to treason by Khalid, young person Arab that the queen had saved and adopted according to the habit of the anaïa (“protection”) into force at the old Berber ones.

Made prisionnière, Dyhia was decapitated, and her head brought to the caliph. Its two sons, Ifran and Yezdia, are forced to convert with Islam and join the troops Moors in departure for Spain. It also had a girl.

Historical divergences

The part played by Dahia constituted a considerable stake for its commentators. The sources which we have on Kahina, symbol indirectly brake with the Moslem expansion, come mainly from the Moslem historians. It is thus for some of them, on political ulterior motives and sights which are based their assertions. That is all the more difficult to check the other sources are rare.

True name

Its true name remains unknown. It was called can be Kahena , Kahya , Dihya , Dahya , or Damya .

Indeed, this element makes object of many ideological interpretations, thus the nickname of Kahina, which would mean in direction “Sorcière”, because described like a hateful character by certain Moslem historians, like Ibn Ben Attir and Bayan. But the direction is probably not pejorative, since in the beginning, this term derives from the Hebrew " Cahen, Cohen " who means Prêtresse and of the Greek to be pure . These same historians report that its true name would be Dihya.

In the same way the nickname Damya , derived from the verb tamazight edmy means “ soothsayer ”, “ prophetess ”. Dihya, in Chaouia (tachawit) means “ beautiful the ”. She was often called Reine Dihya Tadmayt/Tadmut (“the beautiful Queen gazelle”).

Religion

The religion of this Berber, of noble and downward origin probably of a royal long line of the Aurès, is not established in a sure way. Was it Christian? Animist? The historical sources bring quite divergent testimonys.

It is Ibn Khaldoun, famous one of the most serious historians of the Middle Ages, which tell that it was Juive; “Among Berber the Jewish, one distinguished Djeraoua, tribe which lives Aurès, and to which belongs Kahena”. Also, according to the historian and Geographer French, professor Emile Felix Gauthier: “Djeraouas are not any more of the Christians like Aurébas, but many Jews”. Previously, Strabon had testified with the Roman epoch that the Jews were numerous in North Africa. Some had come there freely to the wire the centuries with the phenicians, as of the time of the Carthaginians, while others had been off-set there by Trajan, after having held head in Cyrénaïque with the Roman Légions. Thus they had taken part in the conversion of many Berber tribes.

Some (it is the case of Gabriel Camps in its book Berbères - With the margins of the history , but it does not quote its sources) think that Dihya was Christian because it was the girl of " Matya" itself wire of Tifan. Names which would be the deformations of Matthieu (like the Apôtre) and Théophane (begun again by many Christian Saints). Also Christianity was largely widespread, most of the Berber populations of north had been christianized under the Roman Empire.

Others imply that Dihya would have Pu to be Animiste without being able for as much specifying of which worship it would act, the Berber ones having been pagan before the arrival of Christianity. Thus, the significance priestess and to be pure of its name Kahena, would correspond to a tradition Animiste in North Africa, according to which the priestesses would undergo a Rituel purification.
By taking for example the queen Tuareg Tin Hinan which one supposed, in the same way, Christian woman, whereas the recent discovery of its tomb lets think that it was Animiste.

Scorched earth policy

The Historiographie also stressed the Politique of the burned ground which would have been practiced under Kahena, according to Ibn Khaldoun, Ibn El Athir and Bayan, which would have justified the dissatisfaction with the farmers of the coast. This version is disputed by certain according to which, it would have acted, for the Moslem historians, to discredit the hostile Berber queen with the Moslem expansion: cities and villages actually would certainly have been burned, but that would be explained not by the Arab invasion, but by the fact that the North Africa, since the fall of the Roman Empire of Occident, was the theater of confrontations between Byzantines and autochtones, even between Berbères Nomades and Sédentaire S.

Anecdotes

Between the antique Thevest Roman (today Tebessa) and the agglomeration of Bir El Ater is a well called “Bir el kahina” (the well of the kahina), in reference or remembering the place where it would have been killed. In Baghaï, currently small village with a score of kilometers of Khenchela, the inhabitants indicate certain old ruins as being the ruins of the “palate of Kahina”.
The name of the Meskian river, where Kahina gained there its first victory against the general Ibn Numan, as that of the village of Meskiana which it crosses, would come from the Berber words Mis N Kahina which means “wire of Kahina”.
Some Berbères Chaouis of Aurès say that they have the “nose of Kahina” which of a great beauty would have had, a little like Cleopâtre, a nose particular, but this time not long but equipped with a small bump.
In all the area of Arris to the valley of Ighzer Abdi the name Diyya is rather current at the chaouis “Djebailia”. Also, the historical character of Dihya became a symbol nowadays, with dimensions of Massinissa and Jugurtha, movement berberist.

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