Ashar (

Modern Turkish Turkish ( , ), also referred to as Turkish of Turkey (''Türkiye Türkçesi''), is the most widely spoken of the Turkic languages, with around 80 to 90 million speakers. It is the national language of Turkey and Northern Cyprus. Significant smal ...

: ''Öşür'' or ''Aşar'' ) was a tax in the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...

, based on the traditional practice of muqasama (which means "sharing"), a traditional tithe in the

Fertile Crescent The Fertile Crescent ( ar, الهلال الخصيب) is a crescent-shaped region in the Middle East, spanning modern-day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine and Jordan, together with the northern region of Kuwait, southeastern region of ...

. It was abolished on 17 February 1925 in Turkey the successor of the Ottoman Empire. Much of the Ottoman empire's

tax system A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures (regional, local, or n ...

was inherited from earlier practices in each territory that it conquered. Muqasama had been common practice in the

Mamluk Mamluk ( ar, مملوك, mamlūk (singular), , ''mamālīk'' (plural), translated as "one who is owned", meaning " slave", also transliterated as ''Mameluke'', ''mamluq'', ''mamluke'', ''mameluk'', ''mameluke'', ''mamaluke'', or ''marmeluke'') ...

empire, and much of the Middle East, even before the spread of

Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...

; a similar system had been used in

Sassanid The Sasanian () or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians (, ) and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th centuries AD. Named ...

Persia. Muqasama was a tax directly applied to agricultural output, taking a proportion which varied between areas and between producers. These discriminatory rates caused inefficiencies; as farmers reacted to locally varying taxes on different farm products, this increased variations in agricultural output between areas, or even between villages. Farms subject to the highest taxes switched to alternative crops. Under Ottoman rule, muqasama became known as Ashar. The name means "a tenth", although the exact proportion might vary - and it was a tithe taken from all agricultural produce. Ashar was an important source of revenue in the early Ottoman empire, as it had been for the

Abbasid The Abbasid Caliphate ( or ; ar, الْخِلَافَةُ الْعَبَّاسِيَّة, ') was the third caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abdul-Muttalib ...

s. Ashar was typically paid annually, to the

timar A timar was a land grant by the sultans of the Ottoman Empire between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, with an annual tax revenue of less than 20,000 akçes. The revenues produced from the land acted as compensation for military service. A ...

holder. early forms of öşür were enforced in transit, with watchtowers on transport routes, and checkpoints at bottleneck locations such as bridges and passes. One preserved tax-code document from

Mosul Mosul ( ar, الموصل, al-Mawṣil, ku, مووسڵ, translit=Mûsil, Turkish: ''Musul'', syr, ܡܘܨܠ, Māwṣil) is a major city in northern Iraq, serving as the capital of Nineveh Governorate. The city is considered the second large ...

in the 1540s specifies öşür shares ranging from one fifth to one sixth to a tenth, depending on the crop - more lucrative crops were subject to a larger tithe. There was very wide variation between different regions, and the tithe was extended to cotton, fish, honey, and silk as well as the usual fruit and vegetables. Ashar was primarily collected in the Ottoman Empire's Middle Eastern territories; different tax structures were inherited in other parts of the empire, particularly in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

. Taxation evolved over time, moving from tithes and other taxes-in-kind towards a more centralised system of taxation in cash; hence öşür was mostly superseded by taxes like avariz. However, a later form of tithe on farming, called, asar, was reintroduced during the

tanzimat The Tanzimat (; ota, تنظيمات, translit=Tanzimāt, lit=Reorganization, ''see'' nizām) was a period of reform in the Ottoman Empire that began with the Gülhane Hatt-ı Şerif in 1839 and ended with the First Constitutional Era in 1876. ...

reforms.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Osur Taxation in the Ottoman Empire