Damiya

al-Kāhina (Classical Arabic for "female seer"; modern Maghreb Arabic l-Kahna, commonly romanised as Kah(i)na, also known as Dihya or Kahya) was a 7th century female Berber religious and military leader, who led indigenous resistance to Arab expansion in Northwest 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). al-Kāhinat (the female soothsayer) was the nickname used by her Muslim opponents because of her reputed ability to foresee the future.

Over four centuries after her death, Tunisian hagiographer al-Mālikī seems to have been among the first to state she resided in the Aurès Mountains. Just on seven centuries after her death, the pilgrim at-Tijani was told she belonged to the Lūwāta tribe. When the later historian Ibn Khaldun came to write his account, he placed her with the Jrāwa tribe.

According to various sources, l-Kahna was the daughter of Tabat, or some say Mātiya. These sources depend on tribal genealogies, which were generally concocted for political reasons during the 9th century.

Accounts from the nineteenth century on claim she was a Jew or that her tribe were Judaized Berbers, though scholars dispute this. According to al-Mālikī she was said to have been accompanied in her travels by what the Arabs called an "idol", possibly an icon of the Virgin or one of the Christian saints, but certainly not something associated with Jewish religious customs.

Source: Wikipedia