A raiyah or reaya (from , a plural of "countryman, animal, sheep pasturing, subjects, nationals, flock", also spelled ''raiya'', ''raja'', ''raiah'', ''re'aya'';

Ottoman Turkish Ottoman Turkish ( ota, لِسانِ عُثمانى, Lisân-ı Osmânî, ; tr, Osmanlı Türkçesi) was the standardized register of the Turkish language used by the citizens of the Ottoman Empire (14th to 20th centuries CE). It borrowed extens ...

رعايا ;

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 ...

râiya or reaya; related to the Arabic word rā'ī راعي which means "shepherd, herdsman, patron") was a member of the tax-paying lower class of Ottoman society, in contrast to the

askeri Under the Ottoman Empire, an askeri (Ottoman Turkish: عسكري) was a member of a class of military administrators. This elite class consisted of three main groups: the military, the court officials, and clergy. Though the term ''askeri'' i ...

and kul. The raiyah made up over 90% of the general population in the

millet Millets () are a highly varied group of small-seeded grasses, widely grown around the world as cereal crops or grains for fodder and human food. Most species generally referred to as millets belong to the tribe Paniceae, but some millets a ...

communities. In the

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

world, raiyah is literally ''subject'' of a government or sovereign. The raiyah (literally 'members of the flock') included Christians, Muslims, and Jews who were 'shorn' (''i.e.'' taxed) to support the state and the associated 'professional Ottoman' class. However, both in contemporaneous and in modern usage, it refers to non-Muslim subjects in particular, also called zimmi. In the early Ottoman Empire, raiyah were not eligible for military service, but from the late 16th century, Muslim raiyah became eligible, to the distress of some of the ruling class.Greene, p. 41, quoting Halil Inalcık

References

Sources

* Molly Greene, ''A Shared World: Christians and Muslims in the Early Modern Mediterranean'', Princeton, 2000. * Peter F. Sugar, ''Southeastern Europe under Ottoman Rule, 1354-1804'', series title ''A History of East Central Europe'', volume V, University of Washington Press, 1983. . {{Religious slurs Social classes in the Ottoman Empire Taxation in the Ottoman Empire

See also

References

Sources