'the priestess'), also known as Dihya, was a Berber warrior-queen of the Aurès (a kingdom in present-day northeast Algeria)[1] and a religious and military leader who lived during the seventh century AD.

Generally, she is known to have united various Berber tribes under her leadership to fight against the ongoing Muslim conquest of the Maghreb, leading the indigenous North African defense of the region then known as Numidia.

There are various accounts of the circumstances surrounding her death, but she is thought to have died in modern-day Algeria towards the end of the seventh century.

She fought at the El Djem Roman amphitheater but finally was killed in combat near a well that still bears her name, Bir al Kahina in Aures.

Both Mohamed Talbi and Gabriel Camps interpreted this idol as a Christian icon, either of Christ, the Virgin, or a saint protecting the queen.

Hirschberg, in retranslating the text of Ibn Khaldun and rigorously repeating the whole document, questioned this interpretation, and in general the existence of large Jewish Berber tribes in the end of Antiquity.

Hirschberg, "of all the known movements of conversion to Judaism and incidents of Judaizing, those connected with the Berbers and Sudanese in Africa are the least authenticated.

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.

Al-Kahina succeeded Kusaila as the war leader of the Berber tribes in the 680s and opposed the encroaching Arab Islamic armies of the Umayyad dynasty.

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-Kahina, and accordingly marched into Numidia.

[15] Al-Kahina 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.

While this view may or may not be plausible, some evidence[clarification needed] has been recovered at the site of her death place, modern-day Algeria.

Hasan eventually returned and, aided by communications with the captured officer Khalid bin Yazid al-Qaysi adopted by Al-Kahina, defeated her at the Battle of Tabarka (a locality in present-day Tunisia near the Algerian border)[1] about which there is some uncertainty.

"[23] Feminist scholar Fatima Sadiqi has stated that "Kahina’s female leadership did not rely on institutionalized authority, but on recognized personal charismatic power".

[24] Also, the French, in the early 20th century, anxious to Frenchify Algeria by Romanising its past, drew parallels between themselves and the Romans.

[22] In the present day, the image of Kahina is constantly used by Berber activists to showcase how they, as a people, are strong and will not be conquered or diminished by other communities.

The president of the Defense of the Arab Language, Othman Saadi, said that Kahina represented the resistance to Islam, and thus, should be condemned.