Nightshift – Kurzgesagt after Dark
Nightshift – Kurzgesagt after Dark
Desert Sorceress SOURCES
We would like to thank
Dr. Brahim Oumansour, associate research fellow at the French Institute for International and Strategic Affairs
and
Dr. Hayet Amamou, Faculty of Human and Social Sciences University of Tunis
for reviewing our script.
For our story, we relied on a wide set of sources–you will find links to them below and hope you check them out if you want to learn more about the Desert Sorceress.
Please note that the original information about this story is mostly from late Arabic sources. No authentic documentation (inscriptions, papyrus, ostraca, etc.) has been found–and that is why many historians consider al-Kahina a figure of legend. We have done our best to be historically accurate with the limited documents available.
Intro
The sorceress' mane swirls around her as she screams: "I, Dihya, will be killed, and my head carried on horseback to the Orient, exhibited before the King of Arabs."
Her three sons stare in horror: another of her visions! It’s around 697 in the Maghreb, North Africa. Most of Dihya's army of horsemen are dead, and the survivors have retreated deep into the mountains. In the valley below, thousands of spears and swords of General Hassan's advancing Arab army are glinting in the sun.
"Mother – why won't you flee?" "I am a queen. And queens do not flee death."
We have taken dates here from:
#Abdelmajid Hannoum, Colonial Histories, Post-colonial Memories: The Legend of the Kahina, a North African Heroine (Heinemann, 2001) pg. 12.
Other authors give slightly different dates and timelines:
#Robert Hoyland, In God’s path: The Arab conquests and the creation of an Islamic empire (Oxford University Press, 2015) pp. 143-144.
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/in-gods-path-9780199916368?cc=de&lang=en&
#Walter Kaegi, Muslim expansion and Byzantine collapse in North Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2015) pg. 33.
The above quote from Hannoum, pg. 12 reads “I am a queen, and kings do not flee death.” We changed it to improve script flow.
Part 1 – Free People
In the 7th Century, the coast of what is now Tunisia and eastern Algeria is ruled from the city of Carthage by the Byzantines.
They are the surviving eastern half of the Roman empire – but the vast interior, all the way to the Atlantic, belongs to different groups of people the Byzantines call Moors, and the Arabs will call Berbers, probably from the Greek "barbarian."
#Corisande Fenwick, Early Islamic North Africa: A new perspective (Bloomsbury, 2020) pg. 33.
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/early-islamic-north-africa-9781350075184/
#Hugh Kennedy, The Great Arab conquests: How the spread of Islam changed the world we live in (Da Capo Press, 2008) pg. 285.
https://dacapopublishing.com/titles/hugh-kennedy/the-great-arab-conquests/9780306817403/
Today, some of their descendants see this as a derogatory term and prefer: Imazighen – “Free People.”
#Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, The Berber identity movement and the challenge to North African states (University of Texas Press, 2011).
https://utpress.utexas.edu/9780292744011/
Here are a few other articles on the terms Berber and Amazigh, and Imazighen:
#Definition of Terms in the The Amazigh Oral Narratives Digital Archive, Princeton University Library.
https://dpul.princeton.edu/oral-history-nes/feature/definition-of-terms
#Adeli Block, Respecting Identity: Amazigh Versus Berber, Society for Linguistic Anthropology (September 23, 2019).
https://linguisticanthropology.org/blog/2019/09/23/respecting-identity-amazigh-versus-berber/
Here is why we don’t like to be called Berbers but rather Amazigh, Amazigh World News (December 28, 2022).
https://amazighworldnews.com/here-is-why-we-dont-like-to-be-called-berbers-but-rather-amazigh/
Ahlam Morjani, Who Are The Amazigh People of Morocco, Journey Beyond Travel (April 7, 2026).
https://www.journeybeyondtravel.com/blog/morocco-travel-amazigh-berber.html
These groups have lived in Northwest Africa for thousands of years, but are often only linked by related languages.
#Britannica Article on Berbers (Imazigen) (February 27, 2026).
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Berber
Michael Brett & Elizabeth Fentress, The Berbers (from the Peoples of Africa Series) (Blackwell Publishing, 2007) pp. 3, 15.
#Corisande Fenwick & Andy Merrills, Authority beyond tribe and state in the “Middle Maghrib,” Journal of the Medieval Mediterranean 33 (2021) pp 1-13.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09503110.2020.1865773
Maarten Kossmann, Berber, in: Oxford Handbooks in Linguistics, R. Vossen & G. J. Dimmendaal (Eds.) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020) pp. 281-289.
https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/38608/chapter-abstract/
In antiquity some of their kingdoms were absorbed into the Roman empire, many blending into a diverse Roman-African society. But after the Western Roman Empire collapsed in the 5th century, and the Byzantines were only able to reclaim a fraction of the land in 534, imperial influence slowly faded.
#Britannica Article on Berbers (Imazigen) (February 27, 2026).
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Berber
#Britannica Article on The Vandal conquest in North Africa in Ancient North Africa (April 14, 2026)
https://www.britannica.com/place/North-Africa/The-Vandal-conquest
#Corisande Fenwick & Andy Merrills, Authority beyond tribe and state in the “Middle Maghrib,” Journal of the Medieval Mediterranean 33 (2021) pp 1-13.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09503110.2020.1865773
#Michael Brett & Elizabeth Fentress, The Berbers (from the Peoples of Africa Series) (Blackwell Publishing, 2007) pg. 53.
In personal communication, Hayet Amamou comments that while political domination ended, the social, cultural, and religious influence of the Eastern Roman, or Byzantine Empire declined slowly and lasted in some cases into the 11th century CE.
So two centuries later, Imazighen power is rising again: chiefs rule over small kingdoms from old Roman towns, others have seized control over Byzantine frontier forts. Dozens of stubbornly independent tribes follow their animals to the Saharan oases, or have settled atop the steepest cliffs, so that no one might rule over them.
#Walter Kaegi, Muslim expansion and Byzantine collapse in North Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2015) pp. 82-84, 182.
#Corisande Fenwick, Early Islamic North Africa: A new perspective (Bloomsbury, 2020) pg. 34.
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/early-islamic-north-africa-9781350075184/
#Hugh Kennedy, The Great Arab conquests: How the spread of Islam changed the world we live in (Da Capo Press, 2008) pg. 285.
https://dacapopublishing.com/titles/hugh-kennedy/the-great-arab-conquests/9780306817403/
#Michael Brett & Elizabeth Fentress, The Berbers (from the Peoples of Africa Series) (Blackwell Publishing, 2007) pp. 80, 235, 245.
In one village in the Aurès Mountains, lives Dihya. Her enemies, the Arabs, will later call her "al-Kahina" – "the sorceress". But her life reaches us only through stories retold around desert campfires, so her origins remain mysterious.
#Hugh Kennedy, The Great Arab conquests: How the spread of Islam changed the world we live in (Da Capo Press, 2008) pp. 300-302.
https://dacapopublishing.com/titles/hugh-kennedy/the-great-arab-conquests/9780306817403/
#Abdelmajid Hannoum, Colonial Histories, Post-colonial Memories: The Legend of the Kahina, a North African Heroine (Heinemann, 2001) pg. 1.
#Robert Hoyland, In God’s path: The Arab conquests and the creation of an Islamic empire (Oxford University Press, 2015) pg. 143.
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/in-gods-path-9780199916368?cc=de&lang=en&
Dihya’s tribe stays in the mountains in the summer; in winter, they follow their flocks down to the desert steppes. We don't really know what she believes in, most tribes worship pagan gods or their ancestors, while some have converted to Christianity or Judaism. But just recently a new faith has erupted into the world, carried by armies that seem to win everywhere they go, and it is racing toward them: Islam.
#Hugh Kennedy, The Great Arab conquests: How the spread of Islam changed the world we live in (Da Capo Press, 2008) pg. 285.
https://dacapopublishing.com/titles/hugh-kennedy/the-great-arab-conquests/9780306817403/
#Cynthia Becker, The Kahina: The female face of Berber history, Blog Post of the Mizan Project (October 26, 2015)
https://mizanproject.org/the-kahina-the-female-face-of-berber-history/
#Corisande Fenwick, Early Islamic North Africa: A new perspective (Bloomsbury, 2020) pg. 35.
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/early-islamic-north-africa-9781350075184/
Part 2 – Rise of a Queen
Muhammad, the prophet and political leader of what is now Saudi Arabia dies in 632, but his successors from the Rashidun Caliphate help spread his faith fast.
Within a decade, the Caliphate’s armies have destroyed the Persian Sasanian Empire and taken the Levant and Egypt away from Byzantium, humiliating two of the world's great powers. After a bloody civil war ends in 661, the ambitious Umayyad dynasty takes over the caliphate.
To deal the Byzantines a fatal blow, they wage war on multiple fronts. And North Africa with its strategic harbors and vast tax returns is an attractive asset to fuel their growing empire.
#Britannica Article on Muhammad (March 9, 2026).
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Muhammad
#Britannica Article on the Umayyad dynasty (March 23, 2026).
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Umayyad-dynasty-Islamic-history
#Robert Hoyland, In God’s path: The Arab conquests and the creation of an Islamic empire (Oxford University Press, 2015) pp. 3, 103, 143.
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/in-gods-path-9780199916368?cc=de&lang=en&
#Corisande Fenwick, Early Islamic North Africa: A new perspective (Bloomsbury, 2020) pg. 37.
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/early-islamic-north-africa-9781350075184/
#Hugh Kennedy, The Great Arab conquests: How the spread of Islam changed the world we live in (Da Capo Press, 2008) pg. 298.
https://dacapopublishing.com/titles/hugh-kennedy/the-great-arab-conquests/9780306817403/
In personal communication, Hayet Amamou comments that Muhammad was a prophet and statesman of what is today Saudi Arabia and prophet and political leader of a community of Arabs from Hejaz (the western part of the Arabian Peninsula) who converted to Islam.
While some Imazighen tribes side with the Arabs early on, others ally with the Byzantines, and fight back hard. Internal conflict slows the conquest, but in 692 the Umayyad caliph Abd-Al Malik secures control, eager to prove the strength of his empire. He sends a new general to the Maghreb: Hassān ibn al-Nuʿmān al-Ghassānī, part of the Umayyad elite in Syria.
He sweeps west with 40,000 men, the largest Muslim force ever seen in the region, although the figure was maybe inflated by later Arab historians.
#Vassilios Christides, Byzantine Libya and the march of the Arabs towards the West of North Africa (British Archaeological Reports, 2000) pg. 46.
#Hugh Kennedy, The Great Arab conquests: How the spread of Islam changed the world we live in (Da Capo Press, 2008) pp. 298-299.
https://dacapopublishing.com/titles/hugh-kennedy/the-great-arab-conquests/9780306817403/
#Robert Hoyland, In God’s path: The Arab conquests and the creation of an Islamic empire (Oxford University Press, 2015) pp. 142-143.
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/in-gods-path-9780199916368?cc=de&lang=en&
#Walter Kaegi, Muslim expansion and Byzantine collapse in North Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2015) pp. 223, 265.
And he goes for the biggest prize first: Carthage, the ancient center of Roman power in North Africa. When they reach it, the Byzantines have fled in fear – a huge victory for the Umayyad Empire. Just the land beyond is still not theirs, so general Hassan asks around: who's the most powerful ruler out there?
#Hugh Kennedy, The Great Arab conquests: How the spread of Islam changed the world we live in (Da Capo Press, 2008) pp. 299-302.
https://dacapopublishing.com/titles/hugh-kennedy/the-great-arab-conquests/9780306817403/
#Corisande Fenwick, Early Islamic North Africa: A new perspective (Bloomsbury, 2020) pg. 159.
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/early-islamic-north-africa-9781350075184/
#Vassilios Christides, Byzantine Libya and the march of the Arabs towards the West of North Africa (British Archaeological Reports, 2000) pg. 47.
Kaegi dates the Hassan’s arrival at Carthage a few years earlier than the above sources:
#Walter Kaegi, Muslim expansion and Byzantine collapse in North Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2015) pg. 33.
In this shifting world of self-ruling tribes and loose confederations, real power is hard to pin down. The last king to unite part of them was killed in an earlier Arab raid. But now many Imazighen regroup around an unexpected new leader – a warrior queen of immense authority in the Aurès mountains. Some say she is the old king’s mother. Others whisper she can see the future. Her name is Dihya.
#Susan Stevens & Jonathan Conant, North Africa under Byzantium and early Islam (Dumbarton Oaks, 2016) pg. 6.
https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780884024088
#Michael Brett & Elizabeth Fentress, The Berbers (from the Peoples of Africa Series) (Blackwell Publishing, 2007) pg. 232.
#Walter Kaegi, Muslim expansion and Byzantine collapse in North Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2015) pg. 268.
#Robert Hoyland, In God’s path: The Arab conquests and the creation of an Islamic empire (Oxford University Press, 2015) pg. 143.
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/in-gods-path-9780199916368?cc=de&lang=en&
Part 3 – The River of Sufferings
Hassan's army fills the horizon from end to end, an endless column of horses, camels and infantry. In this motley crew, Persians ride back-to-back with Coptic Egyptians, and all sorts of others. Some are drawn by faith, some by pay and plunder, and many simply by the Arab Empire’s sheer success. Many Imazighen tribesmen who had suffered under Byzantine rule are now betting on the rising power. Among the Arabs, each clan is riding under its own banner, bound together by rivalry as much as shared faith. They look toward the forested slopes of the Aurès Mountains and see a land handed to them by God.
#Vassilios Christides, Byzantine Libya and the march of the Arabs towards the West of North Africa (British Archaeological Reports, 2000) pp. 42, 59-60.
David Nicolle & Angus McBridge, The Moors: The Islamic West 7th-15th centuries AD (Osprey, 2001) pg. 6.
https://www.ospreypublishing.com/ca/moors-9781855329645/
#Robert Hoyland, In God’s path: The Arab conquests and the creation of an Islamic empire (Oxford University Press, 2015) pp. 59, 64.
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/in-gods-path-9780199916368?cc=de&lang=en&
#Hugh Kennedy, The Great Arab conquests: How the spread of Islam changed the world we live in (Da Capo Press, 2008) pp. 69, 302.
https://dacapopublishing.com/titles/hugh-kennedy/the-great-arab-conquests/9780306817403/
#Britannica Article on the Aurès Mountains.
https://www.britannica.com/place/Aures
In personal communication, one of our experts considered it unlikely that the Muslim Army used camels.
But the mountains are looking back. Dihya has been watching the dust cloud of Hassan's army for days, or perhaps, she had seen them in a vision. She descends with a coalition of thousands of Imazighen horsemen, their heads shaven for battle, except for long scalplocks marking their clans. The two worlds meet at the banks of a river, probably near Meskiana in present-day Algeria.
#Michael Brett & Elizabeth Fentress, The Berbers (from the Peoples of Africa Series) (Blackwell Publishing, 2007) pg. 135.
#Hugh Kennedy, The Great Arab conquests: How the spread of Islam changed the world we live in (Da Capo Press, 2008) pp. 69, 302.
https://dacapopublishing.com/titles/hugh-kennedy/the-great-arab-conquests/9780306817403/
Hassan barks an order: archers drop to one knee, behind them spearmen drive their weapons into the ground and level their points forward like a fence. Dihya’s riders break into a gallop.
Her strategy: overwhelm the Arabs in one furious attack or die trying. Arrows tear into them and some go down tumbling in the dust, but the charge does not slow. Their javelins slam into the enemy ranks, snapping men backward off their feet.
#David Nicolle & Angus McBridge, Armies of the Muslim conquest (Osprey, 1993) pp. 6, 19, 48.
https://www.ospreypublishing.com/us/armies-of-the-muslim-conquest-9781472869289/
The Arab cavalry surges out and they clash with the Imazighen, trampling warriors into the riverbank mud. Hassan drives forward flanked by his elite Syrian forces, but then she appears, her hair flowing like a dark banner: the warrior-queen. A roar moves through her ranks, and men who were falling back turn and charge again. Their spears punch through cloth and flesh, and their sling-stones smash faces. Men who have defeated armies from Persia to Egypt now run for their lives, leaving hundreds of bodies in the river. Hassan and his army flee east and do not stop until they reach modern day Libya, almost two thousand kilometers away. Disgraced, the Arabs call the site of their destruction “the river of sufferings”.
#David Nicolle & Angus McBridge, Armies of the Muslim conquest (Osprey, 1993) pp. 48.
https://www.ospreypublishing.com/us/armies-of-the-muslim-conquest-9781472869289/
#Robert Hoyland, In God’s path: The Arab conquests and the creation of an Islamic empire (Oxford University Press, 2015) pg. 144.
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/in-gods-path-9780199916368?cc=de&lang=en&
#Vassilios Christides, Byzantine Libya and the march of the Arabs towards the West of North Africa (British Archaeological Reports, 2000) pg. 47.
#Benjamin Hendrickx, Al-Kahina: The last ally of the Roman-Byzantines in the Maghreb against the Muslim Arab conquest?, Journal of Early Christian History 3 (2013) pp. 47-61.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/2222582X.2013.11877284
Dihya takes eighty prisoners, but releases all except Khalid ibn Yazid, whom she adopts – maybe for his bravery, maybe for his beauty. Some say she makes it official through a shared meal with her two other sons. Folklore tells us she seals the adoption by breastfeeding.
#Abdelmajid Hannoum, Colonial Histories, Post-colonial Memories: The Legend of the Kahina, a North African Heroine (Heinemann, 2001) pp. 12-15, 124.
In personal communication, Hayet Amamou commented on al-Kahina’s sons: one was indigenous (an amazigh) and one was Greek (of Byzantine origin). The fact that she had two sons from different fathers may be due to a cultural change in the local population toward acceptance of the Byzantine conquerors. The third adopted son was captured from the army of Hassène Ibn Noomane and breast-fed by al-Kahina when he was between 16 and 20 years old. The adoption could reveal her prediction that the future of her people and her territory would be in the hands of the Arab conquerors.
Dihya's victory does not just stop Hassan for now, it's a disaster. While he’s waiting for orders, the Byzantines retake Carthage. For a brief moment Arab power in the Maghreb is about to collapse almost as quickly as it had appeared.
#Benjamin Hendrickx, Al-Kahina: The last ally of the Roman-Byzantines in the Maghreb against the Muslim Arab conquest?, Journal of Early Christian History 3 (2013) pg. 52.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/2222582X.2013.11877284
And it is said that Dihya rises higher than ever, as more and more Imazighen tribes rally around her. She has proven the Arab Empire can be beaten, and standing with her is the best way to stay free – for now.
#Ramzi Rouighi, Inventing the Berbers: History and ideology in the Maghrib (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019) pg. 27.
https://www.pennpress.org/9780812251302/inventing-the-berbers/
#Vassilios Christides, Byzantine Libya and the march of the Arabs towards the West of North Africa (British Archaeological Reports, 2000) pg. 36.
Part 4 – The Last Stand
About five years later the people in Carthage experience a déjà vu. Out at sea, a massive fleet appears – general Hassan is back. The Byzantine ships take one look and flee, and the city empties again. To make sure they can never return, Hassan reportedly tears down the walls, fills the harbor with rubble and starts building the new city of Tunis right next to it. After first arriving more than 800 years ago, Rome's political domination in Africa is finally over.
#Vassilios Christides, Byzantine Libya and the march of the Arabs towards the West of North Africa (British Archaeological Reports, 2000) pp. 36, 48.
#Hugh Kennedy, The Great Arab conquests: How the spread of Islam changed the world we live in (Da Capo Press, 2008) pp. 299-300.
https://dacapopublishing.com/titles/hugh-kennedy/the-great-arab-conquests/9780306817403/
According the Kaegi, the destruction of Carthage is not a sure thing:
#Walter Kaegi, Muslim expansion and Byzantine collapse in North Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2015) pp. 266-267.
There is only one person standing between Hassan and the rest of the Maghreb: Dihya, the sorceress.
#Walter Kaegi, Muslim expansion and Byzantine collapse in North Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2015) pp. 292-296.
#Hugh Kennedy, The Great Arab conquests: How the spread of Islam changed the world we live in (Da Capo Press, 2008) pg. 300.
https://dacapopublishing.com/titles/hugh-kennedy/the-great-arab-conquests/9780306817403/
She makes a desperate calculation. The tribes around her may not stay united for long, and the Arabs have been raiding Northwest Africa for decades before trying to conquer it. If the region's wealth keeps pulling them in, the only way to stop them is to destroy that wealth. She orders a scorched-earth campaign, burning orchards and crops and destroying towns and fortresses. She only thinks about the enemy, and not about the people she's supposed to defend. As they watch their homes and harvests go up in flames, respect turns to fury. Thousands abandon Dihya for the Arab side, and she is left ruling nothing but ash.
#Michael Brett & Elizabeth Fentress, The Berbers (from the Peoples of Africa Series) (Blackwell Publishing, 2007) pg. 251.
#Corisande Fenwick, Early Islamic North Africa: A new perspective (Bloomsbury, 2020) pg. 37.
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/early-islamic-north-africa-9781350075184/
#Abdelmajid Hannoum, Colonial Histories, Post-colonial Memories: The Legend of the Kahina, a North African Heroine (Heinemann, 2001) pg. 14.
#Benjamin Hendrickx, Al-Kahina: The last ally of the Roman-Byzantines in the Maghreb against the Muslim Arab conquest?, Journal of Early Christian History 3 (2013) pg. 52.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/2222582X.2013.11877284
#Walter Kaegi, Muslim expansion and Byzantine collapse in North Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2015) pp. 269.
But we should be careful. The earliest written accounts of Dihya come from Arab historians more than 150 years after her death and they had every incentive to portray her as cruel to justify the conquest. Some modern historians suggest that the Arabs themselves may have done the burning and blamed her, while she destroyed only key parts to create a defensive buffer.
#Abdelmajid Hannoum, Colonial Histories, Post-colonial Memories: The Legend of the Kahina, a North African Heroine (Heinemann, 2001) pg. 1.
#Hugh Kennedy, The Great Arab conquests: How the spread of Islam changed the world we live in (Da Capo Press, 2008) pg. 41.
https://dacapopublishing.com/titles/hugh-kennedy/the-great-arab-conquests/9780306817403/
#Benjamin Hendrickx, Al-Kahina: The last ally of the Roman-Byzantines in the Maghreb against the Muslim Arab conquest?, Journal of Early Christian History 3 (2013) pg. 8.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/2222582X.2013.11877284
#Vassilios Christides, Byzantine Libya and the march of the Arabs towards the West of North Africa (British Archaeological Reports, 2000) pp. 36.
Still, by the time Hassan returns, Dihya’s power seems to be fading. Worse, betrayal reached her own family. According to legend, her adopted Arab prisoner Khalid is said to have passed messages to Hassan for some time, hidden in bread or tucked into the knob of a saddle. So when the two sides meet again, Hassan is no longer riding blind.
#Abdelmajid Hannoum, Colonial Histories, Post-colonial Memories: The Legend of the Kahina, a North African Heroine (Heinemann, 2001) pg. 7.
This time, Dihya’s forces are broken and Hassan drives her back to her stronghold in the mountains. And there, legends say, she has the vision of her own death that her sons watch in horror. But for them, she predicts a different fate. Turning to Khalid she says: “I have adopted you for a day such as this one. I am dying, and I would recommend that you take good care of your two brothers.” She tells her sons to go to Hassan, sue for peace and convert to Islam –and predicts their bright future among the Arabs.
#Vassilios Christides, Byzantine Libya and the march of the Arabs towards the West of North Africa (British Archaeological Reports, 2000) pp. 36.
#Abdelmajid Hannoum, Colonial Histories, Post-colonial Memories: The Legend of the Kahina, a North African Heroine (Heinemann, 2001) pg. 7.
#Robert Hoyland, In God’s path: The Arab conquests and the creation of an Islamic empire (Oxford University Press, 2015) pg. 144.
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/in-gods-path-9780199916368?cc=de&lang=en&
In personal communication, Hayet Amamou notes that Arab sources say that al-Kahina was sure she would be killed in the second battle against Hassan. She instructed her sons to go to the King of the Arabs and sue for peace, assuring them their future would be filled with success under his rule. The outcome is supposed to be symbolic of her two sons’ conversion to Islam (her third son had already converted).
Brahim Oumansour, on the other hand, points out that he has not found any sources saying that al-Kahina asked her sons to convert or go to the King of the Arabs. The sources only say that her sons should join Hassan. This underscores the symbolic conversion to Islam.
In an earlier version of our script, we had al-Kahina die in the second battle with Hassan along with her three sons. Later, we changed it to what you see on YouTube.
When Hassan’s forces finally close in, a merciless battle follows, and both sides suffer heavy losses. The exact year is unclear, but probably in the late 690s, Dihya is killed. She fights without fear, knowing how her story would end. But the story of her people is far from over.
#Vassilios Christides, Byzantine Libya and the march of the Arabs towards the West of North Africa (British Archaeological Reports, 2000) pp. 48.
#Robert Hoyland, In God’s path: The Arab conquests and the creation of an Islamic empire (Oxford University Press, 2015) pg. 143.
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/in-gods-path-9780199916368?cc=de&lang=en&
#Hugh Kennedy, The Great Arab conquests: How the spread of Islam changed the world we live in (Da Capo Press, 2008) pg. 304.
https://dacapopublishing.com/titles/hugh-kennedy/the-great-arab-conquests/9780306817403/
Part 5 – The Eternal Queen
With Dihya gone, resistance begins to break apart. Under Hassan’s successor, many Imazighen convert to Islam. They join the Arab armies in enormous numbers, as they push farther west until even Tangier falls under Arab rule.
#Corisande Fenwick & Andy Merrills, Authority beyond tribe and state in the “Middle Maghrib,” Journal of the Medieval Mediterranean 33 (2021) pg. 37.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09503110.2020.1865773
#Robert Hoyland, In God’s path: The Arab conquests and the creation of an Islamic empire (Oxford University Press, 2015) pg. 145.
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/in-gods-path-9780199916368?cc=de&lang=en&
By 711 their joint forces cross into Spain and at its peak around 730, the Umayyad Caliphate stretches from Iberia to the borders of India. It's the largest empire the world has ever seen.
#Michael Brett & Elizabeth Fentress, The Berbers (from the Peoples of Africa Series) (Blackwell Publishing, 2007) pg. 86.
#Alain George & Andrew Marsham, Power, patronage, and memory in early Islam: Perspectives on Umayyad elites (Oxford University Press, 2017)
But the Imazighen are treated badly under the new order, and twenty years later a massive uprising shatters the Maghreb into many independent Muslim states. The pattern remains: By the time European colonization arrives in the 19th century, the tribes of the Aurès Mountains revolt against the French multiple times. When the war for Algerian independence ignites in 1954, the first shots are fired in the mountains of the warrior-queen.
#Michael Brett & Elizabeth Fentress, The Berbers (from the Peoples of Africa Series) (Blackwell Publishing, 2007) pg. 87.
#Robert Hoyland, In God’s path: The Arab conquests and the creation of an Islamic empire (Oxford University Press, 2015) pg. 180-181.
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/in-gods-path-9780199916368?cc=de&lang=en&
Alistair Horne, A Savage war of peace: Algeria 1954–1962 (New York Review Books, 1977; 2006) pg. 93
https://www.nyrb.com/products/a-savage-war-of-peace?
#Hugh Kennedy, The Great Arab conquests: How the spread of Islam changed the world we live in (Da Capo Press, 2008) pg. 302.
https://dacapopublishing.com/titles/hugh-kennedy/the-great-arab-conquests/9780306817403/
It seems as if Dihya’s spirit is immortal. But it's more complicated. For 1300 years, she has been reflecting the viewpoints of whoever tells her story like a mirror. In medieval times, Arab historians portrayed her as a ruthless queen whose downfall was entirely justified. French colonial writers used her to claim that they were actually saving the Imazighen from Arab oppression. And some Jewish writers claimed her as a heroic Jewish queen, despite her religion being somewhat unknowable.
#Abdelmajid Hannoum, Colonial Histories, Post-colonial Memories: The Legend of the Kahina, a North African Heroine (Heinemann, 2001) pg. 15.
#Cynthia Becker, The Kahina: The female face of Berber history, Blog Post of the Mizan Project (October 26, 2015)
https://mizanproject.org/the-kahina-the-female-face-of-berber-history/
#Hugh Kennedy, The Great Arab conquests: How the spread of Islam changed the world we live in (Da Capo Press, 2008) pg. 300.
https://dacapopublishing.com/titles/hugh-kennedy/the-great-arab-conquests/9780306817403/
Now for some of the tens of millions of Imazighen living today, Dihya has become a symbol of indigenous pride and resistance. Her face shows up as graffiti, people name their daughters after her, and in 2003 she even got a statue in northeastern Algeria – her arm raised in a gesture of eternal rebellion.
#Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, Amazigh Politics in the Wake of the Arab Spring (University of Texas Press, 2022).
https://utpress.utexas.edu/9781477324820/
#Cynthia Becker, The Kahina: The female face of Berber history, Blog Post of the Mizan Project (October 26, 2015)
https://mizanproject.org/the-kahina-the-female-face-of-berber-history/
#World History Encyclopedia Article on Statue of Kahina (15 March, 2018)
https://www.worldhistory.org/image/8316/statue-of-kahina/
#In personal communication, Brahim Oumansour reminded us about the inspiration that Dihya’s story has given for many novels and plays, and for authors like Kateb Yacine from Algeria.
This is what legends do: They turn complicated history into a clear, powerful story. The version you choose to believe probably says less about Dihya herself than it does about you.
#Timothy Tangherlini, "It Happened Not Too Far from Here...": A Survey of Legend Theory and Characterization, Western Folklore 49 (1990) pp. 371-390