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The Great Berber Revolt of 739/740-743 AD (122-125 AH in the Muslim calendar) took place during the reign of the Umayyad Caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik and marked the first successful secession from the Arab caliphate (ruled from Damascus). Fired up by Kharijite puritan preachers, the Berber revolt against their Umayyad Arab rulers began in Tangiers in 740, and was led initially by Maysara al-Matghari. The revolt soon spread through the rest of the Maghreb (North Africa) and across the straits to al-Andalus (Spain).

The Umayyads scrambled and managed to prevent the core of Ifriqiya (Tunisia) and al-Andalus from falling into rebel hands. But the rest of the Maghreb was never recovered. After failing to capture the Umayyad provincial capital of Kairouan, the Berber rebel armies dissolved, and the western Maghreb fragmented into a series of small Berber statelets, ruled by tribal chieftans and Kharijite imams.

The Berber revolt was probably the largest military setback in the reign of Caliph Hisham. From it, emerged some of the first Muslim states outside the Caliphate. It is sometimes also regarded as the beginning of Moroccan independence, as Morocco would never again come under the rule of an eastern Caliph or any other foreign power until the 20th century.

Background[link]

The underlying causes of the revolt were the policies of the Umayyad governors in Kairouan, Ifriqiya, who had authority over the Maghreb (all of North Africa west of Egypt) and al-Andalus (Spain).

From the early days of Muslim conquest of North Africa, Arab commanders had treated non-Arab (notably Berber) auxiliaries inconsistently, and often rather shabbily. Although Berbers had undertaken much of the fighting in the conquest in Spain, they were given a lesser share of the spoils and frequently assigned to the harsher duties (e.g. Berbers were thrown into the vanguard while Arab forces were kept in the back; they were assigned garrison duty on the more troubled frontiers). Although the Ifriqiyan Arab governor Musa ibn Nusair had cultivated his Berber lieutenants (most famously, Tariq ibn Ziyad), his successors, notably Yazid ibn Abi Muslim, had treated their Berber forces particularly poorly.^[1]

Most grievously, Arab governors continued to levy extraordinary dhimmi taxation (the jizyah and kharaj) and slave-tributes on non-Arab populations that had converted to Islam, in direct contravention of Islamic law. This had become particularly routine during the caliphates of Walid I and Sulayman.

In 718, the Umayyad caliph Umar II finally forbade the levying of extraordinary taxation and slave tributes from non-Arab Muslims, defusing much of the tension. But expensive military reverses in the 720s and 730s had forced caliphal authorities to look for innovative ways to replenish their treasuries. During the caliphate of Hisham from 724, the prohibitions were side-stepped with reinterpretations (e.g. tying the kharaj land tax to the land rather than the owner, so that lands that were at any point subject to the kharaj remained under kharaj even if currently owned by a Muslim.)

As a result, resentful Berbers grew receptive to radical Kharijite activists from the east (notably of Sufrite and later Ibadite persuasion) which had begun arriving in the Maghreb in the 720s. The Kharijites preached a puritan form of Islam, promising a new political order, where all Muslims would be equal, irrespective of ethnicity or tribal status, and Islamic law would be strictly adhered to. The appeal of the Kharijite message to Berber ears allowed their activists to gradually penetrate Berber regiments and population centers. Sporadic mutinies by Berber garrisons (e.g. under Munnus in Cerdanya, Spain, in 729-31) were put down with difficulty. One Ifriqiyan governor, Yazid ibn Abi Muslim, who openly resumed the jizya and humiliated his Berber guard by branding their hands, was assassinated in 721.^[2]

In 734, Obeid Allah ibn al-Habhab was appointed Umayyad governor in Kairouan, with supervisory authority over all the Maghreb (North Africa) and al-Andalus (Spain). Coming in after a period of mismanagement, Obeid Allah soon set about dynamizing the fiscal resources of the government by leaning heavily on the non-Arab populations, resuming the extraordinary taxation and slave-tribute without apologies. His deputies Oqba ibn al-Hajjaj al-Saluli in Córdoba (Spain) and Omar ibn el-Moradi in Tangier (Morocco) were given similar instructions. The failure of expensive expeditions into Gaul during the period 732-737, repulsed by the Franks under Charles Martel, only increased the tax burden. The parallel failure of the caliphal armies in the east brought no fiscal relief from Damascus.

The Revolt[link]

Revolt in the Maghreb[link]

The zeal of the Umayyad tax-collectors finally broke Berber patience. It is reported that following Obeid Allah ibn al-Habhab's instructions to extract more revenues from the Berbers, Omar ibn al-Moradi, his deputy governor in Tangiers, decided to declare the Berbers in his jurisdiction a 'conquered people' and consequently set about seizing Berber property and enslaving persons, as per the rules of conquest, the 'caliphal fifth' was still owed to the Umayyad state (alternative accounts report he simply doubled their tribute).

This was the last straw. Inspired by the Sufrite preachers, the North African Berber tribes of western Morocco - initially, the Ghomara, Berghwata and Miknasa - decided to break openly into revolt against their Arab overlords. As their leader, they chose Maysara al-Matghari, alleged by some Arab chroniclers to be a lowly water-carrier (but more probably a high Matghara Berber chieftain).

The only question was timing. The opportunity arose sometime in late 739 or early 740 (122 AH), when the powerful Ifriqiyan general Habib ibn Abi Obeida al-Fihri, who had recently been imposing his authority on the Sous valley of southern Morocco, received instructions from the Kairouan governor Obeid Allah to lead a large expedition across the sea against Byzantine Sicily. Gathering his forces, Habib ibn Abi Obeida marched the bulk of the Ifriqiyan army out of Morocco.

As soon as the mighty Habib was safely gone, Maysara assembled his coalition of Berber armies, heads shaven in the Sufri Kharijite fashion and with Qura'nic inscriptures tied to their lances and spears, and brought them bearing down on Tangiers. The city soon fell into rebel hands and the hated governor Omar al-Moradi was killed. It was at this point that Maysara is said to have taken up the title and pretension or amir al-mu'minin ('Commander of the Faithful', or 'Caliph'). Leaving a Berber garrison in Tangier under the command of Christian convert, Abd al-Allah al-Hodeij al-Ifriqi, Maysara's army proceeded to sweep down western Morocco, swelling its ranks with new adherents, overwhelming Umayyad garrisons clear from the Straits down to the Sous. One of the local governors killed by the Berbers was Ismail ibn Obeid Allah, the very son of the Kairouan emir.^[3]

The Berber revolt surprised the Umayyad governor in Kairouan, Obeid Allah ibn al-Habhab, who had very few troops at his disposal. He immediately dispatched messengers to his general Habib ibn Abi Obeida al-Fihri in Sicily instructing him to break off the expedition and urgently ship the Ifriqiyan army back to Africa. In the meantime, Obeid Allah assembled a cavalry-heavy column, composed of the aristocratic Arab elite of Kairouan. He placed the nobles under the command of Khalid ibn Abi Habib al-Fihri, and dispatched it to Tangiers, to keep the Berber rebels contained, while awaiting Habib's return from Sicily. A smaller reserve army was placed under Abd al-Rahman ibn al-Mughira al-Abdari and instructed to hold Tlemcen, in case the Berber rebel army should break through the column and try to drive towards Kairouan.

Maysara's Berber forces encountered the vanguard Ifrqiyian column of Khalid ibn Abi Habib somewhere in the outskirts of Tangiers ^[4] After a brief skirmish with the Arab column, Maysara abruptly ordered the Berber armies to fall back to Tangier. The Arab cavalry commander Khalid ibn Abi Habiba did not give pursuit, but just held his line south of Tangier, blockading the Berber-held city, while awaiting the reinforcements from Habib's Sicilian expedition.

In this breathing space, the Berber rebels got reorganized and undertook an internal coup. The Berber tribal leaders swiftly deposed (and executed) Maysara and elected the Zenata Berber chieftain, Khalid ibn Hamid al-Zanati as the new Berber 'caliph'. The reasons for Maysara's fall remain obscure. Possibly the sudden cowardice shown before the Arab cavalry column proved him military unfit, possibly because the puritan Sufrite preachers found a flaw in the piety of his character, or maybe simply because the Zenata tribal chieftains, being closer to the Ifriqiyan frontline, felt they should be the ones leading the rebellion.

The new Berber leader Khalid ibn Hamid al-Zanati opted to immediately attack the idling Ifriqiyan column before they could be reinforced. The Berber rebels under Khalid ibn Hamid overwhelmed and annihilated the Arab cavalry of Khalid ibn Abi Habiba in an encounter known as the Battle of the Nobles, on account of the veritable massacre of the cream of the Ifriqiyan Arab nobility. This is tentatively dated around c. October–November, 740.

The immediate Arab reaction to the disaster shows just how unexpected this reversal was. Upon the first news of the defeat of the nobles, the reserve army of Ibn al-Mughira in Tlemcen fell into a panic. Seeing Sufrite preachers everywhere in the city, the Umayyad commander ordered his nervous Arab troops to conduct a series of round-ups in Tlemcen, several of which ended in indiscriminate massacres. This provoked a massive popular uprising in the hitherto-quiet city. The city's largely Berber population quickly drove out the Umayyad troops. The frontline of the Berber revolt now leaped to the middle Maghreb (Algeria).^[5]

The Sicilian expeditionary army of Habib ibn Abi Obeida arrived too late to prevent the massacre of the nobles. Realizing they were in no position to take on the Berber army by themselves, they retreated to Tlemcen, to gather the reserves, only to find that city too was now in disarray. There, Habib encountered Musa ibn Abi Khalid, an Umayyad captain who had bravely stayed behind in the vicinity of Tlemcen gathering what loyal forces he could find. The state of panic and confusion was such that Habib ibn Abi Obeida decided to blame the guiltless captain for the entire mess and cut off one of his hands and one of his legs in punishment.^[5]

Habib ibn Abi Obeida entrenched what remained of the Ifriqiyan army in the vicinity of Tlemcen (perhaps as far back as Tahert), and called upon Kairouan for reinforcements. The request was forwarded to Damascus.

Caliph Hisham, hearing the shocking news, is said to have exclaimed: "By God, I will most certainly rage against them with an Arab rage, and I will send against them an army whose beginning is where they are and whose end is where I am!" ^[6]

Coup in al-Andalus[link]

It is sometimes reported that the Andalusian governor Oqba ibn al-Hajjaj al-Saluli dispatched an Andalusian army across the straits to support the Ifriqiyan column around Tangiers, only to be similarly defeated by the Berber rebels in late 740. But this story has been discounted by modern historians, as it is sourced principally from later Spanish chronicles; there is nothing in contemporary accounts referencing any such expedition.

Nonetheless,the news of the Berber victory in Morocco echoed through Spain. Berbers heavily outnumbered Arabs in al-Andalus. Fearing the Berber garrisons in their own lands might take inspiration from their Moroccan brethren, the Andalusian Arab elite quickly deposed Obeid Allah's deputy, Oqba ibn al-Hajjaj al-Saluli, in January 741 and reinstated his predecessor, Abd al-Malik ibn Qatan al-Fihri, a more popular figure among local Arabs and Berbers alike.^[7]

The Syrian Expedition[link]

In February, 741, the Umayyad Caliph Hisham appointed Kulthum ibn Iyad al-Qasi to replace the disgraced Obeid Allah as governor in Ifriqiya. Kulthum was to be accompanied by fresh Arab army of 30,000 - 27,000 raised from the regiments (junds) of Greater Syria^[8] and an additional 3,000 to be picked up in Egypt.^[9] Caliph Hisham appointed Kulthum's nephew Balj ibn Bishr al-Qushayri as his lieutenant and designated successor, and the Jordanian commander Thalaba ibn Salama al-Amili as his second successor (should tragedy befall the prior two).

The elite Syrian cavalry under Balj ibn Bishr, which had moved ahead of the bulk of the forces, was the first to arrive in Kairouan in the Summer of 741. Their brief stay was not a happy one. The Syrians arrived in haughty spirits and quarreled with the Kairouan city authorities, who suspicious, had given them a rather cool reception. Interpreting it as ingratitude, the Syrian barons imposed themselves on the city, billeting troops and requisitioning supplies without regard to local authorities or priorities.

(It is pertinent to note that the members of the Syrian expedition were of different tribal stock than the Arabs they came to save. The early Arab colonists of Ifriqiya and al-Andalus had been drawn largely from tribes of south Arabian origin (known as Kalbid or 'Yemenite' tribes), whereas the Syrian junds were mostly of north Arabian tribes (Qaysid or Mudharite, or 'Syrian' tribes). The ancient and deep pre-Islamic tribal rivalry between Qaysid and Yemenite found itself invoked in repeated quarrels between the earlier colonists and the arriving junds.)

Moving slower with the bulk of the forces, Kulthum ibn Iyad himself did not enter Kairouan, but merely dispatched a message assigning the government of the city to Abd al-Rahman ibn Oqba al-Ghaffari, the qadi of Ifriqiya. Collecting the Syrian vanguard, Kulthum hurried along to make junction with the remaining Ifriqiyan forces (some 40,000) of Habib ibn Abi Obeida al-Fihri holding ground in the vicinity of Tlemcen.

The junction between the North African and Eastern forces did not go smoothly.^[10] News of the Syrian misbehavior in Kairouan had reached the Ifriqiyan troops, while the Syrians, incensed at the poor reception, treated their Ifriqiyan counterparts in a high-handed fashion. Habib and Balj bickered and the armies nearly came to blows. By smooth diplomacy, Kulthum ibn Iyad managed hold the armies together, but the mutual resentments would play a role in subsequent events.

The Berber rebel army, under the leadership of Khalid ibn Hamid al-Zanati (perhaps jointly with a certain Salim Abu Yusuf al-Azdi ^[10]), while boasting great numbers (some 200,000), were very poorly equipped. Many Berber fighters had nothing but stones and knives, dressed in a mere loin cloth, heads shaved in puritan fashion. But they made up for this in knowledge of the terrain, excellent morale, and a fanatical Sufrite-inspired religious fervor.

The Berber and Arab armies finally clashed at the Battle of Bagdoura (or Baqdura) in October–November, 741, by the Sebou river (near modern Fes). Disdaining the experience and cautious advice of the Ifriqiyans, Kulthum ibn Iyad made several serious tactical errors. Berber skirmishers dehorsed and isolated the Syrian cavalry, while the Berber foot fell upon the Arab infantry with overwhelming numbers. The Arab armies were quickly routed. By some estimates, two-thirds of the Arab army were killed or captured by the Berbers at Bagdoura.^[11] Among the casualties were the new governor Kulthum ibn Iyad al-Qasi and the Ifriqiyan commander Habib ibn Abi Obeida al-Fihri.

The Syrian regiments, now reduced to some 10,000, were pulled together by Kulthum's nephew, Balj ibn Bishr and scrambled up towards the straits, where they hoped to get passage across the water to Spain. A small Ifriqiyan contingent, under Habib's son Abd al-Rahman ibn Habib al-Fihri, joined the Syrians in their flight, but the rest of the Ifriqiyan forces fled in a scattered way back to Kairouan. The bulk of the Berber rebel army set off in pursuit of the Syrians, and laid siege to them in Ceuta.

Offensive on Kairouan[link]

The Zenata Berber leader Khalid ibn Hamid al-Zanati who delivered the two great victories over the Arab armies disappears from the chronicles shortly after Bagdoura (741).^[12] But news of the defeat emboldened hitherto quiet Berber tribes to join the revolt. Berber uprisings erupted across the Maghreb and al-Andalus.

The most immediate threat arose in southern Ifriqiya, where the Sufrite leader Oqasha ibn Ayub al-Fezari raised a Berber army and laid sieges to Gabès and Gafsa. By a rapid sally south with the remnant of the Ifriqiyan army, the Kairouan qadi Abd al-Rahman ibn Oqba al-Ghaffari managed to defeat and disperse Oqasha's forces near Gafsa in December, 741.^[13] But the qadi possessed far few Arab troops to put up a pursuit, and Oqasha immediately set about re-assembling his forces quietly around Tobna in the Zab valley of western Ifriqiya.

Immediately after hearing of the disaster at Bagdoura, the Caliph Hisham ordered the Ummayyad governor of Egypt, Handhala ibn Safwan al-Kalbi, to quickly take charge of Ifriqiya. In February 742, Handhala ibn Safwan hurried his Egyptian army westwards and reached Kairouan around April 742, just as Oqasha was returning to try his luck again. Handhala's forces pushed Oqasha back again.

When Oqasha was reassembling his forces once more in the Zab, he came across a large Berber army coming from west, under the command of the Hawwara Berber chieftain Abd al-Wahid ibn Yazid al-Hawwari (possibly dispatched by the Berber caliph Khalid ibn Hamid al-Zanati, although he is not mentioned in the chronicles). Abd al-Wahid's army was composed of some 300,000 Berber troops, ostensibly the largest Berber army ever seen.^[14] After a quick consultation, Oqasha and Abd al-Wahid agreed on a joint attack on Kairouan, Oqasha taking his forces along a southerly route, while Abd al-Wahid led his large army through the northern passes, converging on Kairouan from both sides.

Hearing of the approach of the great Berber armies, Handhala ibn Safwan realized it was paramount to prevent their junction. Dispatching a cavalry force to harass and slow down Abd al-Wahid in the north, Handhala threw the bulk of his forces south, crushing Oqasha in a bloody battle at El-Qarn and taking him prisoner. But Handhala had taken a lot of losses himself, and now faced the unhappy prospect of Abd al-Wahid's gigantic army. Hurrying back, Handhala is said to have put the entire population of Kairouan under arms to bolster his ranks, before setting out again. In perhaps the bloodiest encounter in the Berber wars, Handhala ibn Safwan defeated the great Berber army of Abd al-Wahid ibn Yazid at El-Asnam around May 742 (perhaps a little later), just three miles outside of Kairouan. Some 120,000-180,000 Berbers, including Abd al-Wahid, fell in the field of battle in that single encounter. Oqasha was executed shortly after.

Although Kairouan was saved for the caliphate, and with it the core of Ifriqiya, Handhala ibn Safwan now faced the unenvious task of dragging the more westerly provinces, still under Berber sway, back into the fold. He would not have the chance to accomplish this.

Revolt in al-Andalus[link]

The coup that installed Abd al-Malik ibn Qatan al-Fihri as ruler in Spain in early 741 had been a failsafe device. But once the news of the disaster at Bagdoura spread, a general Berber uprising in Spain could no longer be prevented. In October 741, Berber garrisons in the northwest frontiers of Galicia mutinied. They discarded their Arab commanders and took to the field, abandoning their garrison posts to assemble their own Berber rebel army around the center and march against the Andalusian Arabs in the south.

Although their leaders' have names escaped us, the Spanish Berber rebel army was organized into three columns - one to take Toledo (the main garrison city of the central march), another to aim for Córdoba (the Umayyad capital) and the third to take Algeciras (where the rebels hoped to seize the Andalusian fleet to ferry additional Berber troops from North Africa).

With the frontier garrisons of Galicia suddenly evacuated, the Christian king Alfonso I of Asturias could hardly believe his luck, and set about dispatching Asturian troops to seize the empty forts. With remarkable swiftness and ease, the northwestern provinces of Galicia and, shortly after, León, were added to the Asturian kingdom and permanently lost to al-Andalus. The Asturians immediately set about evacuating the Christian populations from the towns and villages of the Galician-Leonese lowlands, creating an empty buffer zone in the Douro River valley (the Desert of the Duero), between the Christian north and the Islamic south. This new emptied frontier will remain in place for the next few centuries.

The Syrians in Spain[link]

Through much of the winter of 741-42, the remnant of the Syrian expedition, some 10,000 men, under Balj ibn Bishr, remained trapped in Ceuta, besieged by the Berber rebels. The Andalusian ruler Abd el-Malik ibn Qatan Al-Fihri, wary that the presence of the Syrians in Spain would only aggravate matters, refused them passage across the water. Indeed, he forbade any relief of the stranded Syrians, going so far as to publicly torture to death an Andalusian merchant who had dared to dispatch a couple of grain boats to Ceuta to feed the desperate Syrians.^[15]

But news soon reached the Andalusian governor that the Berber rebel armies from Galicia had been organized and were now barreling south in three columns, towards Toledo, Córdoba and Algeciras.

Not having enough Arab forces at hand, the Andalusian governor Abd al-Malik realized he had little choice but to make use of the stranded Syrian force to defeat the Berber armies. In a carefully negotiated treaty, Abd al-Malik granted the Syrians permission to cross over, on the condition that they promise to return to North Africa within a year of the settlement of the Berber matter in Spain. Hostages were taken to secure Syrian compliance.

The Syrian junds under Balj ibn Bishr crossed the straits in early 742 and immediately headed to the environs of Medina-Sidonia, where they intercepted and disposed of the Berber column aiming for Algeciras. The Syrians then joined the Andalusian Arabs in crushing the main Berber rebel army in a ferocious battle outside of Córdoba in the Spring of 742. Shortly after, they proceeded to defeat the third Berber army, then laying siege to Toledo.

The Berber rebellion was quashed in Spain, but the Syrians showed no signs of intending to leave. When the Andalusian governor Abd al-Malik ibn Qatan ibn Fihri pressed the point, Balj ibn Bishr, decided to simply depose him and proclaim himself governor, invoking his credentials as designated successor to his uncle, the late Ifriqiyan governor Kulthum ibn Iyad al-Qasi. In revenge for the merchant of Ceuta, Balj ordered the elderly Ibn Qatan tortured to death.

A civil war was not short in happening. Rallied by Qatan and Umayya, the sons of the late Fihrid governor, Andalusian Arabs took up arms against the Syrian junds. The Syrians delivered a decisive defeat upon the Andalusians at the Battle of Aqua Portora outside of Córdoba in August 742, but Balj ibn Bishr was mortally wounded in the field. Command of the Syrian armies devolved to Thalaba ibn Salama al-Amili, and for the next few months, the Syrians remained bunkered down, while the Andalusians (soon joined by what remained of the Beber rebels), assembled in Mérida.

Much of the next few months was spent in an intercenine Arab civil war, the Berber question relegated to a secondary concern. Eventually, tiring of war, the parties, appealed to the Ifriqiyan emir Handhala ibn Safwan al-Kalbi to resolve the matter. Handhala dispatched his cousin Abu al-Khattar ibn Darar al-Kalbi as the new governor for al-Andalus. Abu al-Khattar arrived in May 743 and immediately set about restoring peace in Andalusia, liberating prisoners (Arab and Berber) and figuring a resolution to the displaced Syrian troops. He decided to distribute the various Syrian junds across Spain, carving out regimental fiefs in hitherto thinly-held areas: the Damascus jund was established in Elvira (Granada), the Jordan jund in Rayyu (Málaga and Archidona), the Palestine jund in Medina-Sidonia and Jerez, the Emesa (Hims) jund in Seville and Niebla and the Qinnasrin jund in Jaén. The Egypt jund was divided between Beja (Algarve) in the west and Tudmir (Murcia) in the east.^[16] (Al-Maqqari refers to an additional jund from Wasit (Iraq) that was settled in Cabra, but this jund is not recorded in other sources).^[17] The Syrian junds were allocated a third of the tax revenues collected in their regions, and given responsibilities of tax-collection and military service to the Andalusian governor.

The arrival of the Syrian junds would have tremendous implications for subsequent Spanish history. They increased substantially the Arab element on the Iberian peninsula, and, as such, were instrumental in deepening the Muslim hold on the south, what would become the heart of al-Andalus. But they also brought trouble. Unwilling to be governed, the Syrian junds carried on an existence of autonomous feudal anarchy, severely destabilizing the power of the governor of al-Andalus.

Later years[link]

It is common to denote 742 or 743 as the 'end' of the Great Berber Revolt, after the failure of the Berber armies to seize Kairouan or Córdoba. But the Berber hold on Morocco would continue.

See also[link]

• Berbers and Islam

Notes[link]

References[link]

Sources[link]

• al-Maqqari (1840-43 transl. by P. de Gayangos) The History of the Mohammedan dynasties in Spain, 2 vols, London: Royal Asiatic Society.
• Blankinship, Khalid Yahya (1994). The End of the Jihad State: The Reign of Hisham Ibn 'Abd Al-Malik and the Collapse of the Umayyads. SUNY Press. ISBN 0-7914-1827-8
• Fournel, Henri (1857) Étude sur la conquête de l'Afrique par les Arabes, Paris, Impermerie Imperiale.
• Heath, Jeffrey M (2002). Jewish and Muslim Dialects of Moroccan Arabic. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1514-2
• Holt, P M, Lambton, Ann K S. and Lewis, Bernard (1977). The Cambridge History of Islam. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-29137-2
• Hrbek, Ivan (1992), Africa from the Seventh to the Eleventh Century, 3rd, University of California Press,
• Ibn Khaldun (1852 transl.) Histoire des Berbères et des dynasties musulmanes de l'Afrique, Algiers.
• Lévi-Provençal, E. (1950)Histoire de l'Espagne musulmane, Tome 1, 1999 ed., Paris: Larose.
• Julien, Charles-André, Histoire de l'Afrique du Nord, des origines à 1830, édition originale 1931, réédition Payot, Paris, 1961
• Kennedy, Hugh (1996) Muslim Spain and Portugal: A Political History of al-Andalus, New York and London: Longman.
• Mercier, E. (1888) Histoire de l'Afrqiue septentrionale, V. 1, Paris: Leroux. Repr. Elibron Classics, 2005.
• Roth, A M and Roth, Norman (1994). Jews, Visigoths and Muslims in Medieval Spain: Cooperation and Conflict. Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 90-04-09971-9
• Taha, Abd al-Wahid Dhannun (1989) The Muslim conquest and settlement of North Africa and Spain, London, Routledge.

Bartholomew JoJo "Bart" Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons and part of the Simpson family. He is voiced by actress Nancy Cartwright and first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987. Bart was created and designed by cartoonist Matt Groening while he was waiting in the lobby of James L. Brooks' office. Groening had been called to pitch a series of shorts based on Life in Hell but instead decided to create a new set of characters. While the rest of the characters were named after Groening's family members, Bart's name was an anagram of the word brat. After appearing on The Tracey Ullman Show for three years, the Simpson family received its own series on Fox, which debuted December 17, 1989.

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During the first two seasons of The Simpsons (1989–1991), Bart was the show's breakout character and "Bartmania" ensued. Bart Simpson T-shirts sporting various slogans and catchphrases became popular, selling at a rate of a million per day at their peak. The song "Do the Bartman" became a number one charting single and the seventh best-selling song of 1991 in the United Kingdom. Bart's rebellious attitude and pride at underachieving caused many parents and educators to cast him as a bad role model for children. A T-shirt reading "I'm Bart Simpson. Who the hell are you?" was banned in several public schools. Around the third season, the series started to focus more on the family as a group, although Bart remains one of the most prominent characters on the series. Time named Bart one of the 100 most important people of the 20th century, and he was named "entertainer of the year" in 1990 by Entertainment Weekly. Nancy Cartwright has won several awards for voicing Bart, including a Primetime Emmy Award in 1992 and an Annie Award in 1995. In 2000, Bart, along with the rest of his family, was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

[edit] Role in The Simpsons

The Simpsons uses a floating timeline in which the characters do not age, and as such the show is always assumed to be set in the current year. In several episodes, events have been linked to specific times, though sometimes this timeline has been contradicted in subsequent episodes. Bart's year of birth was stated in "I Married Marge" (season three, 1991) as being in the early 1980s.^[1] He lived with his parents in the Lower East of Springfield until the Simpsons bought their first house. When Lisa was born, Bart was at first jealous of the attention she received, but he soon warmed to her when he discovered that "Bart" was her first word.^[2] Bart's first day of school was in the early 1990s. His initial enthusiasm was crushed by an uncaring teacher and Marge became worried that something was truly wrong with Bart. One day during recess, Bart met Milhouse and started entertaining him and other students with various gestures and rude words. Principal Skinner told him "you've just started school, and the path you choose now may be the one you follow for the rest of your life! Now, what do you say?" In his moment of truth, Bart responded, "eat my shorts".^[3] The episode "That '90s Show" (season nineteen, 2008) contradicted much of the backstory's time frame; for example, it was revealed that Homer and Marge were childless in the early 1990s.^[4]

Bart's hobbies include skateboarding, watching television (especially The Krusty the Clown Show which includes The Itchy & Scratchy Show), reading comic books (especially Radioactive Man), playing video games and generally causing mischief.^[5] His favorite movies are Jaws and the Star Wars Trilogy. For the duration of the series, Bart has attended Springfield Elementary School and has been in Edna Krabappel's fourth grade class. While he is too young to hold a full-time job, he has had occasional part time jobs. He works as a bartender at Fat Tony's social club in "Bart the Murderer" (season three, 1991);^[6] as Krusty the Clown's assistant in "Bart Gets Famous" (season five, 1994);^[7] as a doorman in Springfield's burlesque house, the Maison Derrière in "Bart After Dark" (season eight, 1996);^[8] and briefly owns his own factory in "Homer's Enemy". (season eight, 1997)^[9]

Character[link]

Creation[link]

Matt Groening created Bart while waiting in James L. Brooks' office.

Matt Groening first conceived of Bart and the rest of the Simpson family in 1986, while waiting in the lobby of producer James L. Brooks' office. Groening had been called in to pitch a series of animated shorts for The Tracey Ullman Show, and had intended to present an adaptation of his Life in Hell comic strip. When he realized that animating Life in Hell would require him to rescind publication rights, Groening decided to go in another direction.^[10] He hurriedly sketched out his version of a dysfunctional family, naming the characters after members of his own family. For the rebellious son, he substituted "Bart", an anagram of the word brat, for his own name,^[10] as he decided it would have been too obvious for him to have named the character 'Matt'.^[11] Bart's middle initial J is a "tribute" to animated characters such as Bullwinkle J. Moose and Rocket J. Squirrel from The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, who received their middle initial from Jay Ward.^[12][13] According to the book Bart Simpson's Guide to Life, Bart's full middle name is "JoJo".^[14]

Bart had originally been envisioned as "a much milder, troubled youth given to existential angst who talks to himself", but the character was changed based on Cartwright's voice acting.^[15] Groening has credited several different figures with providing inspiration for Bart: Matt Groening's older brother Mark provided much of the motivation for Bart's attitude.^[16][17][18] Bart was conceived as an extreme version of the typical misbehaving child character, merging all of the extreme traits of characters such as Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn into one person.^[11] Groening describes Bart as "what would happen if Eddie Haskell [from Leave it to Beaver] got his own show".^[19] Groening has also said that he found the premise of Dennis the Menace disappointing and was inspired to create a character who was actually a menace.^[20]

Bart made his debut with the rest of the Simpson family on April 19, 1987 in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night".^[21] In 1989, the shorts were adapted into The Simpsons, a half-hour series airing on the Fox Broadcasting Company. Bart and the Simpson family remained the main characters on this new show.^[22]

Design[link]

The entire Simpson family was designed so that they would be recognizable in silhouette.^[23] The family was crudely drawn, because Groening had submitted basic sketches to the animators, assuming they would clean them up; instead, they just traced over his drawings.^[10] Bart's original design, which appeared in the first shorts, had spikier hair, and the spikes were of different lengths. The number was later limited to nine spikes, all of the same size.^[24] At the time Groening was primarily drawing in black and "not thinking that [Bart] would eventually be drawn in color" gave him spikes which appear to be an extension of his head.^[25] The features of Bart's character design are generally not used in other characters; for example, no other characters in current episodes have Bart's spiky hairline, although several background characters in the first few seasons shared the trait.^[26]

The basic rectangular shape of Bart's head is described by director Mark Kirkland as a coffee can. Homer's head is also rectangular (with a dome on top), while spheres are used for Marge, Lisa, and Maggie.^[27] Different animators have different methods of drawing Bart. Former director Jeffrey Lynch starts off with a box, then adds the eyes, then the mouth, then the hair spikes, ear, and then the rest of the body. Matt Groening normally starts with the eyes, then the nose, and the rest of the outline of Bart's head. Many of the animators have trouble drawing Bart's spikes evenly; one trick they use is to draw one on the right, one on the left, one in the middle, then continue to add one in the middle of the blank space until there are nine. Originally, whenever Bart was to be drawn from an angle looking down so the top of his head was seen, Groening wanted there to be spikes along the outline of his head, and in the middle as well. Instead, Wes Archer and David Silverman drew him so that there was an outline of the spikes, then just a smooth patch in the middle because "it worked graphically."^[28] In "The Blue and the Gray", Bart (along with Lisa and Maggie) finally questions why his hair has no visible border to separate head from hair.

In the season seven (1995) episode "Treehouse of Horror VI", Bart (along with Homer) was computer animated into a three dimensional character for the first time for the "Homer³" segment of the episode. The computer animation directors was provided by Pacific Data Images.^[29] While designing the 3D model of the character, the animators did not know how they would show Bart's hair. They realized that there were vinyl Bart dolls in production and purchased one to use as a model.^[29]

Voice[link]

Nancy Cartwright is the voice of Bart Simpson.

Bart's voice is provided by Nancy Cartwright, who voices several other child characters on The Simpsons, including Nelson Muntz, Ralph Wiggum, Todd Flanders, and Kearney.^[30] While the roles of Homer and Marge were given to Dan Castellaneta and Julie Kavner because they were already a part of The Tracey Ullman Show cast,^[31] the producers decided to hold casting for the roles of Bart and Lisa. Yeardley Smith had initially been asked to audition for the role of Bart, but casting director Bonita Pietila believed her voice was too high. Smith later recalled, "I always sounded too much like a girl. I read two lines as Bart and they said, 'Thanks for coming!'"^[32] Smith was given the role of Lisa instead.^[33] On March 13, 1987, Nancy Cartwright went in to audition for the role of Lisa. After arriving at the audition, she found that Lisa was simply described as the "middle child" and at the time did not have much personality. Cartwright became more interested in the role of Bart, who was described as "devious, underachieving, school-hating, irreverent, [and] clever".^[34] Matt Groening let her try out for the part instead, and upon hearing her read, gave her the job on the spot.^[35] Cartwright is the only one of the six main Simpsons cast members who had been professionally trained in voice acting prior to working on the show.^[36]

Cartwright's normal speaking voice is said to have "no obvious traces of Bart".^[37] The voice came naturally to Cartwright; prior to The Tracey Ullman Show, she had used elements of it in shows such as My Little Pony, Snorks, and Pound Puppies.^[37] Cartwright describes Bart's voice as easy to perform, saying, "Some characters take a little bit more effort, upper respiratory control, whatever it is technically. But Bart is easy to do. I can just slip into that without difficulty."^[37] She traditionally does five or six readings of every line in order to give the producers more to work with.^[35] In flashforward episodes, Cartwright still provides the voice of Bart. For "Lisa's Wedding", (season six, 1995) Bart's voice was electronically lowered.^[38]

Despite Bart's fame, Cartwright is rarely recognized in public. On occasions when she is recognized on the street and asked to perform Bart's voice in front of children, Cartwright will refuse because it "freaks [them] out".^[37] During the first season of The Simpsons, the Fox Network did not allow Cartwright to give interviews because they did not want to publicize that Bart was voiced by a woman.^[39]

Until 1998, Cartwright was paid $30,000 per episode. During a pay dispute in 1998, Fox threatened to replace the six main voice actors with new actors, going as far as preparing for casting of new voices.^[40] The dispute was resolved and Cartwright received $125,000 per episode until 2004, when the voice actors demanded that they be paid $360,000 an episode.^[40] The dispute was resolved a month later,^[41] and Cartwright's pay rose to $250,000 per episode.^[42] After salary re-negotiations in 2008, the voice actors receive approximately $400,000 per episode.^[43]

Hallmarks[link]

In the opening sequence of many Simpsons episodes, the camera zooms in on Springfield Elementary School, where Bart can be seen writing a message on the chalkboard. This message, which changes from episode to episode, has become known as the "chalkboard gag".^[44] Chalkboard messages may involve political humor such as "The First Amendment does not cover burping",^[45] pop culture references such as "I can't see dead people",^[46] and meta-references such as "I am not a 32 year old woman" and "Nobody reads these anymore".^[44] The animators are able to produce the chalkboard gags quickly and in some cases have changed them to fit current events. For example, the chalkboard gag for "Homer the Heretic" (season four, 1992) read, "I will not defame New Orleans." The gag had been written as an apology to the city for a controversial song in the previous week's episode, which called the city a "home of pirates, drunks and whores".^[47][48] Many episodes do not feature a chalkboard gag because a shorter opening title sequence, where the chalkboard gags are cut, is used to make more room for story and plot development.

One of Bart's early hallmarks were his prank calls to Moe's Tavern owner Moe Szyslak in which Bart calls Moe and asks for a gag name. Moe tries to find that person in the bar, but rapidly realizes it is a prank call and angrily threatens Bart. These calls were based on a series of prank calls known as the Tube Bar recordings. Moe was based partly on Tube Bar owner Louis "Red" Deutsch, whose often profane responses inspired Moe's violent side.^[49] The prank calls debuted in "Homer's Odyssey", (season one, 1990) the third episode to air, but were included in "Some Enchanted Evening", the first episode of the series that was produced.^[50] As the series progressed, it became more difficult for the writers to come up with a fake name and to write Moe's angry response, so the pranks were dropped as a regular joke during the fourth season.^[50][51] They have occasionally resurfaced on the show, the most recent being the season 20 episode "Lost Verizon" (2008), although in that case Bart called various bartenders around the world and not Moe.^[52]

The catchphrase "Eat My Shorts" was an ad-lib by Cartwright in one of the original table readings, harking back to an incident when she was in high school. Cartwright was in the marching band at Fairmont High School, and one day while performing, the band chanted "Eat my shorts" rather than the usual "Fairmont West! Fairmont West!"^[32] Bart's other catchphrases, "¡Ay, caramba!" and "Don't have a cow, man!", were featured on t-shirts manufactured during the production of the early seasons of The Simpsons.^[53][54] "Cowabunga" is also commonly associated with Bart, although it was mostly used on the show after it had been used as a slogan on the T-shirts.^[55] The use of catchphrase-based humor was mocked in the episode "Bart Gets Famous" (season five, 1994) in which Bart lands a popular role on Krusty the Clown's show for saying the line "I didn't do it."^[56] The writers chose the phrase "I didn't do it" because they wanted a "lousy" phrase "to point out how really crummy things can become really popular".^[57]

Bart commonly appears nude in the show, although in every case only his buttocks are visible.^[58] In The Simpsons Movie (2007), Bart appears in a sequence where he is skateboarding while fully nude; several different items cover his genitalia, but for a brief moment his penis can be seen. The scene was one of the first worked on for the film, but the producers were very nervous about the segment because they thought it would earn the movie an R rating.^[59] The film was rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America and PG by the British Board of Film Classification.^[60] The scene was later included by Entertainment Weekly in their list of "30 Unforgettable Nude Scenes."^[61]

Personality[link]

Bart's character traits of rebelliousness and disrespect for authority have been compared to that of America's founding fathers, and he has been described as an updated version of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, rolled into one.^[63] In his book Planet Simpson, Chris Turner describes Bart as a nihilist, a philosophical position that argues that existence is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value.^[62]

Bart's rebellious attitude has made him a disruptive student at Springfield Elementary School, where Bart is an underachiever and proud of it.^[64] He is constantly at odds with his teacher Ms. Krabappel, Principal Skinner, and occasionally Groundskeeper Willie.^[65] Bart does poorly in school and is well aware of it, having once declared, "I am dumb, okay? Dumb as a post! Think I'm happy about it?"^[64] On one occasion, Lisa successfully proves that Bart is dumber than a hamster.^[66] In "Separate Vocations" (season three, 1992) Bart becomes hall monitor and his grades go up, suggesting that he struggles mainly because he does not pay attention, not because he is stupid.^[67] This idea is reinforced in "Brother's Little Helper", (season eleven, 1999) in which it is revealed that Bart suffers from Attention Deficit Disorder.^[68] His lack of smarts can also be attributed to the hereditary "Simpson Gene", which affects the intelligence of most male members of the Simpson family.^[69] Although he gets into endless trouble and can be sadistic, shallow and selfish, Bart also exhibits many qualities of high integrity. He has, on a few occasions, helped Principal Skinner and Mrs. Krabappel:^[70] In "Sweet Seymour Skinner's Baadasssss Song" (season five, 1994), Bart accidentally got Skinner fired and befriended him outside of the school environment. Bart missed having Skinner as an adversary and got him rehired, knowing that this would mean that the two could no longer be friends.^[71]

Due to Bart's mischievousness and Homer's often uncaring and incompetent behavior, the two have a turbulent relationship. Bart will often address Homer by his given name instead of "Dad", while Homer in turn often refers to him as "the boy".^[72] Homer has a short temper and when enraged by Bart will strangle him on impulse in a cartoonish manner.^[73] One of the original ideas for the show was that Homer would be "very angry" and oppressive toward Bart, but these characteristics were toned down somewhat as their characters were explored.^[74] Marge is a much more caring, understanding and nurturing parent than Homer, but she also refers to Bart as "a handful" and is often embarrassed by his antics.^[75] In "Marge Be Not Proud", (season seven, 1995) she felt she was mothering Bart too much and began acting more distant towards him after he was caught shoplifting. At the beginning of the episode, Bart protested at her over-mothering but as her attitude changed, he felt bad and made it up to her.^[76] Despite his attitude, Bart is sometimes willing to experience humiliation if it means pleasing his mom.^[77] Marge has expressed an understanding for her "special little guy" and has defended him on many occasions. She once said "I know Bart can be a handful, but I also know what he's like inside. He's got a spark. It's not a bad thing... Of course, it makes him do bad things."^[75]

Bart shares a sibling rivalry with his younger sister, Lisa, but has a buddy-like relationship with his youngest sister Maggie, due to her infant state. While Bart has often hurt Lisa, and even fought her physically, the two are often very close.^[66][72] Bart cares for Lisa as deeply and has always apologized for going too far.^[79] He also believes Lisa to be his superior when it comes to solving problems and frequently goes to her for advice.^[67] Bart is also highly protective of Lisa: When a bully destroys her box of cupcakes in "Bart the General", (season one, 1990), Bart immediately stands up for her.^[80]

Bart is best friends with Milhouse Van Houten, although Bart has at times shown embarrassment about their friendship.^[81] Bart is a bad influence on Milhouse, and the two have been involved in a lot of mischief together. Because of this behavior, Milhouse's mother forbids Milhouse from playing with Bart in "Homer Defined" (season three, 1991). While at first he pretended that he did not care, Bart eventually realizes that he needs Milhouse, and Marge manages to convince Mrs. Van Houten to reconsider.^[75] While Bart is portrayed as a popular cool boy,^[81] he and Milhouse are frequent targets for bullies, including Dolph, Jimbo, Kearney, and Nelson Muntz. Milhouse describes their social standing as "Three and a half. We get beat up, but we get an explanation."^[70] While Bart and Nelson have been adversaries in the past, with Bart once declaring war on him,^[80] they have also been close friends at times.^[82]

Bart is one of the biggest fans of children's television host Krusty the Clown. He once declared, "I've based my whole life on Krusty's teachings," and sleeps in a room filled with Krusty merchandise. He has helped the clown on many occasions, for example, foiling Sideshow Bob's attempt to frame Krusty for armed robbery in "Krusty Gets Busted" (season one, 1990), reuniting Krusty with his estranged father in "Like Father, Like Clown".^[83] and helping Krusty return to the air with a comeback special and reignite his career in "Krusty Gets Kancelled".^[84] For his part, Krusty has remained largely ignorant of Bart's help and treats Bart with disinterest.^[83] One summer, Bart enthusiastically attended Kamp Krusty, which turned out to be a disaster, with Krusty nowhere to be seen. Bart keeps his hopes up by believing that Krusty would show up, but is soon pushed over the edge, and finally decides that he is sick of Krusty's shoddy merchandise and takes over the camp. Krusty immediately visits the camp in hopes of ending the conflict and manages to appease Bart.^[85][86] One of the original ideas for the series was that Bart worshiped a television clown but had no respect for his father, although this was never directly explored.^[87][88] Because of this original plan, Krusty's design is basically Homer in clown make-up.^[32] When Bart foiled Sideshow Bob's plans in "Krusty Gets Busted", it sparked a long-standing feud between the two. The writers decided to have Bob repeatedly return to get revenge on Bart. They took the idea of the Coyote chasing the Road Runner and depicted Bob an intelligent person obsessed with catching a bratty boy.^[89] Bob has appeared in eleven episodes, generally plotting various evil schemes, but is always foiled in the end.^[90]

Reception and cultural influence[link]

Bartmania[link]

While later seasons would focus on Homer, Bart was the lead character in most of the first three seasons. In 1990, Bart quickly became one of the most popular characters on television in what was termed "Bartmania".^{[91][92][93][94]} He became the most prevalent Simpsons character on memorabilia, such as T-shirts. In the early 1990s, millions of T-shirts featuring Bart were sold;^[95] as many as one million were sold on some days.^[96] Believing Bart to be a bad role model, several American public schools banned T-shirts featuring Bart next to captions such as "I'm Bart Simpson. Who the hell are you?" and "Underachiever ('And proud of it, man!')".^[97][98][99] The Simpsons merchandise sold well and generated $2 billion in revenue during the first 14 months of sales.^[97] The success of Bart Simpson merchandise inspired an entire line of black market counterfeit items, especially T-shirts. Some featured Bart announcing various slogans, others depicted redesigns of the character, including "Teenage Mutant Ninja Bart, Air Simpson Bart, [and] RastaBart".^[100] Matt Groening generally did not object to bootleg merchandise, but took exception to a series of "Nazi Bart" shirts which depicted Bart in Nazi uniform or as a white power skinhead.^[101] 20th Century Fox sued the creator of the shirts, who eventually agreed to stop making them.^[102]

Michael Jackson, who was a fan of Bart, wrote the song "Do the Bartman".

Due to the show's success, over the summer of 1990 the Fox Network decided to switch The Simpsons' timeslot so that it would move from 8:00 p.m. EST on Sunday night to the same time on Thursday, where it would compete with The Cosby Show on NBC, the number one show at the time.^[55][103] Through the summer, several news outlets published stories about the supposed "Bill vs. Bart" rivalry.^[55][96] The August 31, 1990 issue of Entertainment Weekly featured a picture of Bill Cosby wearing a Bart Simpson T-shirt.^[104] "Bart Gets an F" (season two, 1990) was the first episode to air against The Cosby Show, and it received a lower Nielsen rating, tying for eighth behind The Cosby Show, which had an 18.5 rating. The rating is based on the number of household televisions that were tuned into the show, but Nielsen Media Research estimated that 33.6 million viewers watched the episode, making it the number one show in terms of actual viewers that week. At the time, it was the most watched episode in the history of the Fox Network,^[105] and it is still the highest rated episode in the history of The Simpsons.^[106] Because of his popularity, Bart was often the most promoted member of the Simpson family in advertisements for the show, even for episodes in which he was not involved in the main plot.^[107]

Bart was described as "television's king of 1990",^[108] "television's brightest new star"^[109] and an "undiminished smash".^[96] Entertainment Weekly named Bart the "entertainer of the year" for 1990, writing that "Bart has proved to be a rebel who's also a good kid, a terror who's easily terrorized, and a flake who astonishes us, and himself, with serious displays of fortitude."^[110] In the United States congressional, senatorial and gubernatorial elections of 1990, Bart was one of the most popular write-in candidates, and in many areas was second only to Mickey Mouse amongst fictional characters.^[111][112] In the 1990 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, Bart made his debut as one of the giant helium-filled balloons for which the parade is known. The Bart Simpson balloon has appeared at every parade since.^[113] This was referenced in The Simpsons in the episode "Bart vs. Thanksgiving", which aired the same day as the parade, where Homer tells Bart, "If you start building a balloon for every flash-in-the-pan cartoon character, you turn the parade into a farce!" Meanwhile, behind and unbeknownst to him, the television briefly shows a Bart Simpson balloon.^[79][114]

The album The Simpsons Sing the Blues was released in September 1990 and was a success, peaking at #3 on the Billboard 200^[115] and becoming certified 2x platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America.^[116] The first single from the album was the pop rap song "Do the Bartman", performed by Nancy Cartwright and released on November 20, 1990. The song was written by Michael Jackson, although he did not receive any credit.^[117] Jackson was a fan of The Simpsons, especially Bart,^[118] and had called the producers one night offering to write Bart a number one single and do a guest spot on the show.^[119] Jackson eventually guest starred in the episode "Stark Raving Dad" (season three, 1991) under the pseudonym John Jay Smith.^[120] While the song was never officially released as a single in the United States, it was successful in the United Kingdom. In 1991 it was the number one song in the UK for three weeks from February 16 to March 9 and was the seventh best-selling song of the year.^[121] It sold half a million copies and was certified gold by the British Phonographic Industry on February 1, 1991.^[122]

Bart as a role model[link]

Bart's rebellious nature, which frequently resulted in no punishment for his misbehavior, led some parents and conservatives to characterize him as a poor role model for children.^[124][125] Robert Bianco of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette wrote that "[Bart] outwits his parents and outtalks his teachers; in short, he's the child we wish we'd been, and fear our children will become."^[126] In schools, educators claimed that Bart was a "threat to learning" because of his "underachiever and proud of it" attitude and negative attitude regarding his education.^[127] Others described him as "egotistical, aggressive and mean-spirited".^[128] In response to the criticism, James L. Brooks said, "I'm very wary of television where everybody is supposed to be a role model, you don't run across that many role models in real life. Why should television be full of them?"^[129] Elizabeth Thoman, executive director of the Center for Media and Values in Los Angeles, commented, "If kids look up to Bart Simpson, we need to ask why we use television for all the role models in our society, a much larger issue. [...] As long as we perpetuate the idea of television as a place where you get all your role models, we're allowing television to become a school system."^[129]

In 1990 William Bennett, who at the time was drug czar of the United States, visited a drug treatment centre in Pittsburgh and upon noticing a poster of Bart remarked, "You guys aren’t watching The Simpsons, are you? That’s not going to help you any."^[130] When a backlash over the comment ensued, Bennett apologized, claiming he "was just kidding"^[131] and saying "I'll sit down with the little spike head. We'll straighten this thing out."^[132] In a 1991 interview, Bill Cosby described Bart as a bad role model for children, calling him "angry, confused, frustrated". In response, Matt Groening said, "That sums up Bart, all right. Most people are in a struggle to be normal he thinks normal is very boring, and does things that others just wished they dare do."^[133] On January 27, 1992, then-President George H. W. Bush said, "We are going to keep on trying to strengthen the American family, to make American families a lot more like the Waltons and a lot less like the Simpsons."^[97] The writers rushed out a tongue-in-cheek reply in the form of a short segment which aired three days later before a rerun of "Stark Raving Dad" in which Bart replied, "Hey, we're just like the Waltons. We're praying for an end to the Depression, too."^[134][135]

Although there were many critics of the character, favorable comments came from several quarters. Peggy Charren, president of Action for Children's Television, a grassroots organization dedicated to improving the quality of television programming offered to children, commented that "the Simpson family is one of the few thoughtful cartoons on commercial television. [...] How can you teach the Constitution if you ban Tshirts?"^[127] Columnist Erma Bombeck wrote, "Kids need to know that somewhere in this world is a contemporary who can pull off all the things they can only fantasize about, someone who can stick it to their parents once in a while and still be permitted to live."^[127] In 2003, Bart placed first in a poll of parents in the United Kingdom who were asked "which made-up character had the most influence" on children under 12 years old.^[136]

Commendations[link]

In 2000, Bart, along with the rest of the Simpson family, was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

In 1998, Time named Bart one of the 100 most important people of the 20th century. He was the only fictional character to make the list.^[54] He had previously appeared on the cover of the December 31, 1990 edition.^[137] He was also ranked #48 in TV Guide's "50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time" in 1996^[138] and both he and Lisa ranked #11 in TV Guide's "Top 50 Greatest Cartoon Characters of All Time" in 2002.^[139]

At the 44th Primetime Emmy Awards in 1992, Cartwright won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance for voicing Bart in the season three episode "Separate Vocations". She shared the award with five other voice-actors from The Simpsons.^[140] Various episodes in which Bart is strongly featured have been nominated for Emmy Awards for Outstanding Animated Program, including "Radio Bart" in 1992, "Future-Drama" in 2005, "The Haw-Hawed Couple" in 2006 and "Homer's Phobia", which won the award in 1997.^[141] In 1995, Cartwright won an Annie Award for "Voice Acting in the Field of Animation" for her portrayal of Bart in an episode.^[142] In 2000, Bart and the rest of the Simpson family were awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame located at 7021 Hollywood Boulevard.^[143]

Merchandising[link]

Alongside t-shirts, Bart has been included in various other The Simpsons-related merchandise, including air fresheners, baseball caps, bumper stickers,^[96] cardboard standups, refrigerator magnets, key rings, buttons, dolls, posters, figurines, clocks, soapstone carvings, Chia Pets, bowling balls and boxer shorts.^[144][145] The Bart Book, a book about Bart's personality and attributes, was released in 2004.^[146][147] Other books include Bart Simpson's Guide to Life. The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'oh! of Homer, which is not an official publication, includes a chapter analyzing Bart's character and comparing him to the "Nietzschean ideal".^[148]

Bart has appeared in other media relating to The Simpsons. He has appeared in every one of The Simpsons video games, including Bart vs. the World, Bart Simpson's Escape from Camp Deadly, Bart vs. the Space Mutants, Bart's House of Weirdness, Bart vs. The Juggernauts, Bartman Meets Radioactive Man, Bart's Nightmare, Bart & the Beanstalk and The Simpsons Game, released in 2007.^[149] Alongside the television series, Bart regularly appears in issues of Simpsons Comics, which were first published on November 29, 1993 and are still issued monthly, and also has his own series called Bart Simpson Comics which have been released since 2000.^[150][151] Bart also plays a role in The Simpsons Ride, launched in 2008 at Universal Studios Florida and Hollywood.^[152]

Bart, and other The Simpsons characters, have appeared in numerous television commercials for Nestlé's Butterfinger candy bars from 1990 to 2001, with the slogan "Nobody better lay a finger on my Butterfinger!"^[153] Lisa would occasionally advertise it too. Matt Groening would later say that the Butterfinger advertising campaign was a large part of the reason why Fox decided to pick up the half-hour show.^[154] The campaign was discontinued in 2001, much to the disappointment of Cartwright.^[155] Bart has also appeared in commercials for Burger King, C.C. Lemon, Church's Chicken, Domino's Pizza, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Ramada Inn, Ritz Crackers and Subway.^[155] In 2001, Kellogg's launched a brand of cereal called "Bart Simpson Peanut Butter Chocolate Crunch", which was available for a limited time.^[156][157] Before the half-hour series went on the air, Matt Groening pitched Bart as a spokesperson for Jell-O. He wanted Bart to sing "J-E-L-L-O", then burp the letter O. His belief was that kids would try to do it the next day, but he was rejected.^[158]

On April 9, 2009, the United States Postal Service unveiled a series of five 44 cent stamps featuring Bart and the four other members of the Simpson family. They are the first characters from a television series to receive this recognition while the show is still in production.^[159] The stamps, designed by Matt Groening, were made available for purchase on May 7, 2009.^[160][161]

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