The Resm-i Çift (''Çift Akçesi'' or ''Çift resmi'') was a tax in the
Ottoman Empire. It was a tax on farmland, assessed at a fixed annual rate per çift, and paid by land-owning Muslims. Some
Imam
Imam (; ar, إمام '; plural: ') is an Islamic leadership position. For Sunni Muslims, Imam is most commonly used as the title of a worship leader of a mosque. In this context, imams may lead Islamic worship services, lead prayers, ser ...
s and some civil servants were exempted from the resm-i çift.
The tax was collected annually, on 1 March, from the holder of the
timar or their tax-farmer. Some exemptions from resm-i çift were granted, but this was less common than exemptions from extraordinary taxes. Some of the ''
sadat'' were initially considered exempt from taxes such as the resm-i çift, but this exemption ended in the 17th century; there were various exemptions for those involved in salt-making and
mining.
The
Çift is a measure of land area, derived from the word for "pair"; it is an area of farmland which can be ploughed by a pair of
oxen
An ox ( : oxen, ), also known as a bullock (in BrE
British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Oxford Dictionaries, "English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer spec ...
- the equivalent of the Byzantine
Zeugarion. It has been argued that the basic land tax in Asia Minor and the Balkans was directly copied from earlier
Byzantine tax methods. A nim çift was half of that area (or half a yoke of oxen); a çiftli bennak was an area less than half; these terms match the Byzantine zeugarion, boidaton, and aktemon - and the rates of tax were initially similar.
In the 15th and 16th centuries, most taxpayers in the
Ottoman empire paid resm-i çift at a rate somewhere between 22 and 70 akçe; this could have been collected by a
sipahi, as either a tax in kind or a cash tax. However, later centralised tax reforms led to cash payments of
avâriz and
nüzül
Nüzül was a tax in the Ottoman Empire.
Mechanism
Nüzül was designed as a form of requisitioning from farms, to feed Ottoman armed forces; large quantities of food were needed to support Ottoman armies in the field. Flour was a major constitue ...
replacing resm-i çift; this transition had begun by 1640. A typical
defter
A ''defter'' (plural: ''defterler'') was a type of tax register and land cadastre in the Ottoman Empire.
Description
The information collected could vary, but ''tahrir defterleri'' typically included details of villages, dwellings, household ...
record from the village of Eyucek in
Antep shows that çiftliks held 10 çift, taxed at 40 akçe per çift, totalling 400 akçe; this, along with most of the village's other taxes (mostly taxes on individual crops), was paid to the fiefholder. Rates might vary for Muslims and nonmuslims; there are even instances of Muslim converts continuing to pay their "old" rate of tax.
Landless peasants might pay
Resm-i bennâk instead.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Resm-i cift
Taxation in the Ottoman Empire