Kahina : the Berber Jewish queen

Women in Amazigh culture hold higher status than women in Arabic, Christian and Jewish culture. In 760 AD the Amazigh(Berber) high priestess Kahina led her people against the Arab invaders. She and her people drove the Arab invaders back for a time, though she eventually lost her life in the struggle... and the Amazigh People were colonized and "Arabized."

Who was al-Kahina?: Dihya al-Kahina was a woman born into a Jewish Berber tribe in the Aures Mountains some time during the 600s CE. During her lifetime, Arab generals began to lead armies into North Africa, preparing to conquer the area and introduce Islam to the local peoples. The Berber tribes fiercely resisted invasion, and decades of war resulted. Very little is known about Dihya's family, or her early life. Her father's name was Tabat, or Thabitah. The name al-Kahina is a feminine form of "Cohen", and it may indicate that her family or tribe were cohanim.

It could also have been a title given to her personally, meaning something like 'priestess' or 'prophetess'. Her followers, and their enemies, credited her with prophesy and magical knowledge. She married at least once, and had sons. Beyond that, almost nothing is known. The Berbers of the seventh century were not religiously homogenous. Christian, Jewish and pagan Berbers were spread through the region that is now Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and Libya. They shared a common language and culture, however, and the invasion of the Arabs presented them with a common cause, to drive out the invaders. Al-Kahina emerged as a war-leader during this tense period, and proved amazingly successful at leading the tribes to join together against their common enemy.

Her reputation as a strategist and sorceress spread, and she managed to briefly unite the tribes of Ifrikya, the Berber name for North Africa, ruling them and leading them in battle for five years before her final defeat.