Case file · Folklore / legend
Dihya, the 'Kahina' of the Aurès
Arab chroniclers called the Berber queen Dihya 'al-Kahina', the soothsayer. She led resistance to the Umayyad conquest around 698–703 and was said to foresee her own defeat.
698 CE · 35.43, 7.14 · status: legend
The account
Ibn Khaldun wrote that she sent her sons to the enemy camp, knowing she would die. Today she's a hero to Amazigh, Jewish and Algerian national memory alike.
The sceptical view
The accounts were written centuries later by her enemies' chroniclers and mix history and legend.