This Queen Used Visions to Defeat an Entire Army

Video summary

Dihya defeats Hassan at the River of Sufferings before scorched earth and betrayal end her resistance.

Around 697, Dihya, the Imazighen warrior queen of the Aurès Mountains, confronted Hassan ibn al-Nuʿmān’s Umayyad army after it captured Carthage. At a river near modern Algeria, her cavalry shattered Hassan’s forces and drove them nearly 2,000 kilometers to Libya, earning the battlefield the name “River of Sufferings.” When Hassan returned about five years later, Dihya ordered a scorched-earth campaign, alienating thousands of her own people—though later Arab accounts may have exaggerated or fabricated her role. Betrayed through her adopted son Khalid, she was defeated and killed in the late 690s. Her sons converted to Islam, while Dihya’s memory endured as a symbol of Imazighen resistance, later invoked against Arab rule and French colonization.

Chapters

1. 0:00Free People: Dihya and the Imazighen of the Aurès Mountains
2. 2:58Rise of a Queen: Hassan’s 40,000-Man Maghreb Campaign
3. 5:08The River of Sufferings: Dihya Defeats Hassan Near Meskiana
4. 9:49The Last Stand: Dihya’s Scorched-Earth Campaign and Death
5. 12:50The Eternal Queen: Dihya’s Legacy from Algeria to Spain