Haraç (, , , sh-Cyrl-Latn, харач, harač) was a land tax levied on non-Muslim subjects in the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

. ''Haraç'' was developed from an earlier form of land taxation, ''

kharaj Kharāj () is a type of individual Islamic tax on agricultural land and its produce, regardless of the religion of the owners, developed under Islamic law. With the first Muslim conquests in the 7th century, the ''kharaj'' initially was synonym ...

'' (''harac''), and was, in principle, only payable by non-Muslims; it was seen as a counterpart to

zakat Zakat (or Zakāh زكاة) is one of the Five Pillars of Islam. Zakat is the Arabic word for "Giving to Charity" or "Giving to the Needy". Zakat is a form of almsgiving, often collected by the Muslim Ummah. It is considered in Islam a relig ...

paid by

Muslims Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

.Hunter, Malik and Senturk, p. 77 The ''haraç'' system later merged into the

cizye Jizya (), or jizyah, is a type of taxation levied on non-Muslim subjects of a state governed by Islamic law. The Quran and hadiths mention jizya without specifying its rate or amount,Sabet, Amr (2006), ''The American Journal of Islamic Social Scie ...

taxation system. While the taxes collected from non Muslims were higher than those collected from Muslims, the rights and opportunities provided to non Muslims were much more limited. It often incentivised people to convert to Islam. Haraç collection was reformed by a

firman A firman (; ), at the constitutional level, was a royal mandate or decree issued by a sovereign in an Islamic state. During various periods such firmans were collected and applied as traditional bodies of law. The English word ''firman'' co ...

of 1834, which abolished the old levying system, and required that ''haraç'' be raised by a commission composed of the kadı and the ''ayans'', or municipal chiefs of '' rayas'' in each district. The firman made several other changes to taxation as part of the wider

Tanzimat The (, , lit. 'Reorganization') was a period of liberal reforms in the Ottoman Empire that began with the Edict of Gülhane of 1839 and ended with the First Constitutional Era in 1876. Driven by reformist statesmen such as Mustafa Reşid Pash ...

reform movement within the Ottoman Empire.

References

Sources

* * * {{Ottoman-stub Taxation in the Ottoman Empire Christianity in the Ottoman Empire History of taxation Disabilities (Jewish) Zakat