About two years ago, I was in Casablanca, enjoying some Tangine and assorted salads at the Sqala Cafe Maure. Nestled in the ochre walls of the sqala, an 18th-century fortified bastion near the marina, it served as inspiration for one of my favorite warriors.

My host, Driss, a Casablanca area businessman, and I were discussing the various warriors that made up History's Greatest Warriors Volume 1. 

He asked me about Dihya, and why I hadn't included her in the book.

"Dihya?" I asked. I hadn't heard of her yet.

Driss went on to describe a warrior Queen that was an inspiration to the Maghreb culture of North Africa.

After hearing his description of her exploits, I knew right then and there I needed her story in Volume 2 of History's Greatest Warriors.

I hope you find her story just as fascinating as I did.

-Johnathan
 

DIHYA
“Algerian Warrior Queen”
 
While Joan of Arc stands out in the minds of most as
the most famous example of a brave and religiously-inspired
woman-warrior, few of us have heard of Dihya. A mighty
Queen Warrior, she was a kindred spirit to Joan of France and
defended her country and religion vehemently back in the 7th
century. Born in the mountains of modern-day Algeria, Dihya
is purported to have been a member of royalty and destined to
become the Queen of the Aurés. Although little is known of
her parentage, according to the Arab historian Ibn Khaldun
her mother was a member of the Jrāwa tribe who went by the
name of Tabita or Mathia ben Tifan – daughter of Tifan.
 
As a Jrāwa, Dihya would have been considered a
Berber, although this term has been rejected by the Amazigh
people throughout history. The Amazigh people populated
much of North Africa from as earlier as 5,000 BC and
commanded considerable respect for their military competence
and excellence with horses. Calling themselves Amazigh,
possibly meaning ‘free men’  the Berbers integrated with the
Phoenicians of Carthage, living alongside them in an uneasy
peace for many years.
 
The Israeli writer and translator Nahum Slouschz
suggests that Dihya was a descendant of a wealthy and noble
family, deported from Judea. According to Slouschz’s version
of events, King Josiah instigated the Deuteronomic Reform,
removing idols, destroying cults and establishing the Temple of
Jerusalem as the focal point for all worship. In keeping with
the Bible’s Book of Deuteronomy, the reform stressed the
notion that only one God should be worshipped, reinforcing
the concept of monotheism.
 
Slouschz describes Dihya as “a descendant of a priestly
family” ; as priests exist only in the Anglican, Catholic and
Orthodox churches, her family didn’t necessarily support the
strict Judaism of Josiah, and this might have led to their
deportation. Although some sources indicate that Dihya was
Jewish by birth, it seems more likely that she converted to
Judaism with the rest of her tribe earlier in the century.
Historically the Amazigh people held a variety of religious
beliefs, with some being Jewish, others Christian and still
others adhering to an ancient polytheist set of beliefs 561 .
 
Although Dihya has been depicted as a leader faithful
to the Judah religion, some claim she was a Christian who took
strength from the image of the Virgin Mary. Others suggest
that she practised an indigenous religion which worshipped the
sun and moon which resonates with her reported prophetic
powers better than either the Christian or Jewish religions.
Whatever her beliefs, Dihya was brave and determined while
facing the rise of Islam in Africa, perhaps partially due to the
denigration of women within the Islamic religion which would
have undermined her authority and status.
 
Little is known of her childhood, although there have
been suggestions that she developed an early interest in desert
birds. While this seems a trivial footnote in her life, her studies
significantly advanced biological science in North Africa as
well as contributed to her reputation during her lifetime as a
sorceress who could foresee the future by speaking to the birds
and animals. As with everything relating to Dihya, there
are many different versions of events that revolve around her;
even her name is debated. Some refer to her as Dahiya while
other scholars name her as Tihya or Dahra.
 
All the records we have of her life are often
controversial and contradictory, full of legend and folklore
with a few facts sprinkled in. Like her religious beliefs, Dihya’s
tribal origins are equally unclear with some suggesting she
belonged to the Lūwāta tribe rather than the Jrāwa. Regardless
of the lack of clarity regarding her origins, Dihya established
herself as a powerful leader who united disparate Berber tribes
to fight for their cultural and social independence, refusing to
be subjugated.
 
Prior to leading her own army into battle, Dihya fought
alongside Aksel, the king of Altava and chief of the Awraba
clan; according to some sources he was her father 565 . During
these battles, Dihya proved her capability as an adept soldier
and astute military commander. Aksel led the Byzantine-
Berber army into battle against the invading Arabs, plotting
their defeat after pretending to join the Arab side. According
to some, Aksel converted to Islam as a ruse to lure the Arabs
into a false sense of security that enabled Aksel to ambush
their weakening army 566 . It seems Aksel believed that
converting to Islam would be profitable for him, but as the
Muslim influence and army grew in strength, Aksel’s own
position of sovereignty looked certain to come to an end, and
he was encouraged to abandon his adopted faith and return to
his religious roots.
 
The Berbers fought many invading forces over the
years, and their violent response to the Islamic invasion was
possibly not fuelled by religious beliefs. Fanatically
independent, they had been subjected to Roman rule and were
determined not to be conquered again. The invasion of the
Arabs into their lands was resisted ferociously, and they saw
the conflict with the warriors of Islam as a mere “continuation
of a fight against the Romans”.
 
It is highly probable that Dihya joined the battle against
the Arabs around the time of Aksel’s reversion to Judaism, just
as many of her fellow tribal members did. Ibn-Khaldun
suggested that the conflict between the Arabs and the Amazigh
was another form of the struggle between nomadic and settled
people repeated throughout history, rather than a fight with
origins in conflicting beliefs. Regardless of her motives, Dihya
was a determined and effective soldier, earning herself
widespread respect and authority.
 
Late in the 7 th century, chief Aksel was captured by
Arab soldiers and forced to disband his army. After his release
or escape, however, the king of Altava went right back to
fighting and reformed his army to take on the Arabs once
again. This time, he succeeded in defeating them and killing
their leader, Uqba ibn Nafi. Upon his death, Aksel was
succeeded by either his wife or another female relative, but the
ruler of the successor was very brief. By around 690 AD,
Dihya became commander of the Berber army.
 
Having already proved her worth as a soldier, Dihya
cemented her reputation as a formidable military opponent.
When the Islamic troops returned to invade again under the
command of Hassan ben Naaman, they were prepared for
renewed bitter fighting with the Berbers, but they didn’t count
on Dihya. Invading with 45,000 soldiers, Hassan was
supremely confident of victory, especially so when he learned
that he was opposed by a mere woman. Dihya first attempted
to use diplomacy to neutralise the Arabs, but all offers of a
negotiated peace were dismissed and refused. Instead, Hassan
responded with his own ultimatum advising that he would
grant peace only if Dihya converted to Islam and recognised
the supremacy of the Muslim authorities. According to some
sources, Dihya stalwartly refused with the declaration “I shall
die in the religion I was born to”.
 
 
In an entirely polemic version of events, French
historian Henri Garrot suggests that Dihya actually converted to Islam
rather than confront the mighty force of Hassan, but the Arab leader
advanced to attack her army anyway. Mubarak Milli rejects this theory,
claiming Garrot simply wanted to discredit the great Amazigh queen while
suggesting that the Islamic invasion brought stability and prosperity to the
region.
 
Another source provides evidence consistent with this
belief, suggesting that Hassan sent an envoy to Dihya
demanding that she accept Islam as the religion of her people.
When Dihya refused, Hassan’s representative explained that
they wanted to bring the Amazigh people into the light of
Islam. Dihya again challenged him saying that she has read the
Koran but found “nothing new in it” and that it seemed
somewhat regressive “especially in regards to the relations
between men and women”. Inevitably this sparked a
heated argument about the status of men and women, and
reportedly Dihya angrily retorted “I am not inferior to you and
you are not my equal!”
 
In this version of events, Dihya is as familiar with the
premises of the Islamic religion as she is both Judaism and
Christianity, although it is the latter that she has embraced.
Hassan’s envoy becomes enraged at her refusal to accept what
she refers to as his “false prophet”, and called her “a witch and
a sorceress”. Her supporters counselled caution, but Dihya
remained defiant and pointed out that if they converted to
Islam, her people would lose both their lands and their
freedom, which was ultimately the same fate they faced if they
were defeated in battle. Declaring that they had nothing to
lose and everything to win, she reasoned that the Berbers
would need to fight.
 
It would seem that Dihya’s faith, loyalty and her
apparent ability to speak with animals and foresee the future
swayed many of her people. Berbers from all over the region
came together to join forces with the woman they called
Kahina, meaning “the diviner, the fortuneteller”. Although
some have asserted that Dihya’s reputation as a sorceress was
bestowed on her by her opponents, others contend that her
gift of prophecy gave her the capacity to predict the exact
formation of opponents’ troops, the direction of their attack
and the source of their possible reinforcements. Inevitably this
inspired her fellow Berbers and, although her victories were
hard-won, they were nonetheless decisive.
 
Some accounts suggest that although her forces were
significantly outnumbered by the Muslim army, Dihya was able
to secure an unlikely victory by using her knowledge of the
environment. Realising the untenability of her position, Dihya
had ordered a retreat. However, as she perceived the strong
winds blowing in the enemy direction she ordered that large
fires be set, sending great clouds of smoke at the Arab soldiers.
This stopped the enemy advance, but also obscured her forces
from Hassan and his men. Strategically, it also meant that to
launch another attack the Arabs would have to cross a great
swathe of burnt wasteland with no resources at hand. Hassan
promptly retreated and spent the next five years in Egypt,
licking his wounds and preparing for a second invasion.
 
There is evidence that indicates the success of her fire-
brand approach inspired Dihya to instigate a scorched-earth
policy that would, in time, prove disastrous both for her and
for her people. Believing that the Arabs were primarily after
the riches her land had to offer them, Dihya decided that by
destroying everything of worth she would dissuade the Arabs
from further invasions. Historian Edward Gibbon records the
Berber Queen as urging her people to destroy all their precious
metals and raze their cities so that “when the avarice of our
foes shall be destitute of temptation, perhaps they will cease to
disturb the tranquillity of a warlike people”.
 
Dihya began her campaign by burning productive fields
and melting down precious metals, before going on to tear
down cities and towns and destroy all fortifications. Sadly,
although this may have made the Berber lands less attractive to
invaders, it also meant that the livelihood of her own people
was seriously compromised. With no hope of growing food in
their charred fields and blackened orchards and with no roof
over their heads, many town and city residents became
nomadic and wandered through the barren wasteland left after
years of war. Inevitably, this damaged her reputation and
popularity considerably... if it was true, that is.
 
Gibbon is pretty scathing in his treatment of the
Amazigh queen, saying that her policy of “universal ruin”
probably terrified those city inhabitants who shared neither her
beliefs nor her nomadic upbringing. According to Gibbon, she
was an unworthy leader who based her powers on “blind and
rude idolatry” and the “baseless fabric of her superstition”.
Others, however, are suspicious of claims that Dihya was
responsible for the scorched-earth policy, pointing out that it
was a technique the Arabs had used previously in both Libya
and Egypt. The Arabs found this was an effective way of
subduing the enemy population and as they were more
concerned with recruiting people for religious conversion than
winning great territories and riches, this was a successful
approach.
 
If the Arabs did instigate the scorched-earth policy, it
proved effective even if many historians have attributed the
blame to the Berber Queen. Regardless of who decided on the
tactic, it certainly had the effect of demoralising the people and
all but destroying their faith in their sorcerer queen. For many,
a Muslim victory seemed inevitable, and perhaps even Dihya
herself doubted her capacity to continue resisting the Arabs.
Some even suggest that she later surrendered one of her own
sons to Hasan .
 
Unlike the morally pure Joan of Arc, Dihya was a
passionate woman who was “addicted to the lusts of the flesh
with all her youthful flaming temper”. She had two sons by
two different men and apparently had three husbands on hand
to satisfy her carnal needs.
 
Rumour has it that just as she surrendered one of her
own sons to Islam, she subsequently adopted one young man
from amongst the Arabic prisoners she captured during her
conflicts with Hassan. In a strangely generous act, Dihya was
known to favour releasing any prisoners she took, but this one
enemy soldier named Haled ben Yazid she took as her own
son. Little is said of Yazid after this event, but another son
seems to have played an instrumental role in her eventual
defeat.
 
According to some sources, when the invading Arabs
returned amongst them was one of Dihya’s own sons who had
turned away from Judaism and converted to Islam. Although
it is unclear as to whether the returning Muslim army was lead
by Hassan or his successor Musa, their defeat of Dihya is not
in dispute.
 
Assuming that Hassan was leading the Arab army with
Dihya’s son by his side, the Berber queen he found waiting for
him in the Aures mountains was a very different woman to the
one who had defeated him some years before. Either as a
consequence of the scorched-earth policy or through bribery
and corruption, many of those who had stood behind the
Dihya had defected to Hassan’s army, leaving her heavily
outnumbered. To further her disadvantage, her traitorous
offspring knew her usual methods and was able to inform
Hassan on her probable tactics.
 
With so much against her, it’s hard to believe Dihya
even bothered to engage with the opposition at all, but she did,
and her small army fought so bravely and with such ferocity
even their enemies couldn’t fail to admire them. As any true
warrior should, it is believed that Dihya was killed sword in
hand fighting for her beliefs and her country. She was
decapitated, and her head was given to Hassan as a prize of
war. Reportedly out of respect for his former opponent, he
went on to take good care of her sons, bringing them up as his
own and giving them the tools to follow in their mother’s
footsteps, leading their own armies into battle.
 
Things weren’t so good for the Berber people after
Dihya’s defeat and death; thousands were sold into slavery by
the victorious Arab oppressors. Those few that stayed free
ended up in isolated communities, holding out as long as they
could against the formidable Arab onslaught. Some are said to
have taken their own lives rather than convert to Islam, but by
around 750, North Africa was almost exclusively Islamic, with
little of Dihya’s Jewish legacy remaining.
 
Despite this, Dihya has proved an important figure for
a variety of people and cultures. Noted author and historian
Abdelmajid Hannoum stated that “[N]o legend has articulated
or promoted as many myths, nor served as many ideologies as
this one”. Dihya has been reborn and reinvented numerous
times, serving as a figurehead for the Berbers and ironically,
even the Muslims. According to some Muslim believers, Dihya
didn’t die on the battlefield but was rather defeated, after
which she converted to Islam and became a model Muslim.
This seems a highly unlikely outcome.
 
Nevertheless, over the past 10 centuries or so Dihya
has been adopted by a wide range of different political and
social groups with diverse agendas covering everything from
Berber cultural and ethnic rights to feminism and Arab
nationalism. The Arabs often present her as a woman in
possession of supernatural powers but who eventually,
recognised the legitimacy of Islam, went on to encourage her
sons to adopt the religion and create unity between the Berbers
and their former enemies.
 
Part of Dihya’s chameleon capacity appears to have
come from the Berbers’ own fluidity when it came to religious
beliefs. According to Ibn Khaldun, the Berbers adopted the
beliefs of pretty much every group of people that ruled over
them, first adopting Judaism while under the influence of the
Yemen kings before swiftly switching to Christian beliefs
following the Roman invasion. Such changeability has meant
the legend of Dihya could be claimed by virtually anyone,
although it is as an example of the Berbers’ religious, gender,
and ethnic tolerance that she is most remembered.
 
Dihya has been so celebrated by the Berber people that
a statue of her was erected in Algeria as recently as 2003. Built
by Amazigh activists, the 9-foot monument was constructed as
part of a movement to preserve the remains of what they
believe to have been a fortress erected by Dihya during the
Muslim invasion. Far from uncontroversial, however, the
unveiling of the statue was ignored by the national press, even
though the Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika attended
the ceremony. Cynthia Becker suggests that Bouteflika’s
presence was designed to appease the activists while the lack of
press coverage was at the instigation of the government,
suggesting a conflict of interest .
 
For some, the defiant woman warrior immortalised in
the effigy represents a period of history and religious activism
they would rather forget. Given that the Amazigh are now
Muslims, some see the statue as an act of blasphemy,
celebrating a woman who strongly resisted their own religion.
Indeed, Dihya has been celebrated as a “prototypical antihero,
representing everything counter to Islamic values”.
 
Although in more recent times, Dihya has been taken
to symbolise feminism amongst the Amazigh people, she also
embodies the ethnic rights of this small populace. Certainly
during her lifetime, the Amazigh enjoyed relative freedom and
women were allowed leadership status – a relatively unusual
aspect of any culture at the time. Not only was ancestry traced
using the female line, but property was also passed down from
daughter to daughter. This would come to an abrupt end with
the introduction of Islam to the region, but Dihya’s dramatic
attempts at protecting her people have never been forgotten.
 
It is notable that many powerful women have been
associated with having some kind of supernatural powers, and
Dihya is no exception. Not only is she described as being
unusually tall and "great of hair", but legend also suggests that
she lived for over 100 years and when she was inspired would
let out her hair and beat her breast, suggesting a state of
religious ecstasy. In addition to her prophetic capabilities,
it has also been suggested that the Kahina’s revolt against the
Arabs was foretold by the appearance of a comet. Legends
and rumours have also swirled around Dihya’s private life,
suggesting that she married twice, once to a Greek and once to
a fellow Amazigh.
 
In another story of Dihya or, on this occasion, Dahi-
Yah, the beautiful young woman is ordered by the leader of
another tribe to become his wife. Initially, she refused, but
when the chieftain went on to intimidate and massacre her
tribe, she relented and married him. The tribal chief was an
unpleasant man who forced himself on her and beat her prior
to their wedding. On their first night of wedded misery,
however, Dihya took her revenge “smashing his skull with a
nail” and ending his tyranny.
 
Whatever Dihya was, in terms of religion and power
she has firmly established herself as an icon and symbol of the
Amazigh people’s refusal to be subordinated or converted into
this or that set of religious beliefs. To this day, Dihya remains
an important and popular figurehead for Berber activists who
feel her power and position not only emphasises the gender
equality of their culture but also their liberal beliefs and
willingness to accept people of all ethnic and religious origins.
 
The Amazigh people continue to fight for recognition
as a distinct political, ethnic and linguistic group. In certain
places like Libya, even speaking the Amasizgh language can
lead to arrest and charges of espionage. Meanwhile, in
Morocco, the Amazigh continue to fight against both
economic deprivations and to have their native tongue
Tamazight recognised as an official language alongside Arabic.
 
It is little wonder then that a woman who was prepared
to put her life on the line to secure independence and freedom
for her people should continue to be celebrated among the
Amazigh. Many girls are named for the Berber Queen, and her
image appears regularly in the crude graffiti of Amazigh
activities, serving as a visible symbol of self-determination,
resistance, and freedom.

History's Greatest Warriors is available on Amazon as a digital download
or in paperback on most online bookstores.

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