em-dash: Kahina Romanized name: Kahina for al-Kāhinat (Classical Arabic for “female seer”; modern Maghreb Arabic: L-Kahna, Berber: Dihya or Kahya, was a 7th century female Berber religious and military leader, who led indigenous resistance to Arab expansion inNorthwest Africa, the region then known as Numidia, known as the Maghreb today. She was born in the early 7th century and died around the end of the 7th century probably in modern day Algeria. Her real name was said to be Dihyā, Dahyā or Damiya (the Arabic spellings are difficult to distinguish between these variants).[1] al-Kāhinat (the female soothsayer) was the nickname used by her Muslim opponents because of her reputed ability to foresee the future. Ibn Khaldun records many legends about al-Kāhinat. A number of them refer to her long hair or great size, both legendary characteristics of sorcerers. She is also supposed to have had the gift of prophecy and she had three sons, which is characteristic of witches in legends. Even the fact that two were her own and one was adopted (an Arab officer she had captured), was an alleged trait of sorcerers in tales. Another legend claims that in her youth, she had supposedly freed her people from a tyrant by agreeing to marry him and then murdering him on their wedding night. Virtually nothing else of her personal life is known. al-Kāhinat succeeded Kusaila as the war leader of the Berber tribes in the 680s and opposed the encroaching Arab armies of the Umayyad Dynasty. Hasan ibn al-Nu’man marched from Egypt and captured the major Byzantine city of Carthage and other cities (see Umayyad conquest of North Africa ). Searching for another enemy to defeat, he was told that the most powerful monarch in North Africa was “the queen of the Berbers” (Arabic: malikat al-barbar) al-Kāhinat, and accordingly marched into Numidia. The armies met near Meskiana [10] in the present-day province of Oum el-Bouaghi, Algeria. She defeated Hasan so soundly that he fled Ifriqiya and holed up in Cyrenaica (Libya) for four or five years. Realizing that the enemy was too powerful and bound to return, she was said to have embarked on a scorched earth campaign, which had little impact on the mountain and desert tribes, but lost her the crucial support of the sedentary oasis-dwellers. Instead of discouraging the Arab armies, her desperate decision hastened defeat.[11] [wikipedia]

em-dash:

Kahina

Romanized name: Kahina for al-Kāhinat (Classical Arabic for “female seer”; modern Maghreb Arabic: L-Kahna, Berber: Dihya or Kahya, was a 7th century female Berber religious and military leader, who led indigenous resistance to Arab expansion inNorthwest Africa, the region then known as Numidia, known as the Maghreb today. She was born in the early 7th century and died around the end of the 7th century probably in modern day Algeria.

Her real name was said to be Dihyā, Dahyā or Damiya (the Arabic spellings are difficult to distinguish between these variants).[1] al-Kāhinat (the female soothsayer) was the nickname used by her Muslim opponents because of her reputed ability to foresee the future.

Ibn Khaldun records many legends about al-Kāhinat. A number of them refer to her long hair or great size, both legendary characteristics of sorcerers. She is also supposed to have had the gift of prophecy and she had three sons, which is characteristic of witches in legends. Even the fact that two were her own and one was adopted (an Arab officer she had captured), was an alleged trait of sorcerers in tales. Another legend claims that in her youth, she had supposedly freed her people from a tyrant by agreeing to marry him and then murdering him on their wedding night. Virtually nothing else of her personal life is known.

al-Kāhinat succeeded Kusaila as the war leader of the Berber tribes in the 680s and opposed the encroaching Arab armies of the Umayyad Dynasty. Hasan ibn al-Nu’man marched from Egypt and captured the major Byzantine city of Carthage and other cities (see Umayyad conquest of North Africa ). Searching for another enemy to defeat, he was told that the most powerful monarch in North Africa was “the queen of the Berbers” (Arabic: malikat al-barbar) al-Kāhinat, and accordingly marched into Numidia. The armies met near Meskiana [10] in the present-day province of Oum el-Bouaghi, Algeria. She defeated Hasan so soundly that he fled Ifriqiya and holed up in Cyrenaica (Libya) for four or five years. Realizing that the enemy was too powerful and bound to return, she was said to have embarked on a scorched earth campaign, which had little impact on the mountain and desert tribes, but lost her the crucial support of the sedentary oasis-dwellers. Instead of discouraging the Arab armies, her desperate decision hastened defeat.[11]

[wikipedia]

(Source: emm-dash)

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