Haraç

Haraç (Armenian: խարջ / kharj, Macedonian: arač / арач, Greek: χαράτσι / charatsi, Serbo-Croatian: харач / harač) was a land tax levied on non-Muslims in the Ottoman Empire.

Haraç was developed from an earlier form of land taxation, kharaj (harac), and was, in principle, only payable by non-Muslims; it was seen as a counterpart to zakat paid by Muslims. The haraç system later merged into the cizye taxation system.

Haraç collection was reformed by a firman 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.

Sources

• Halil İnalcık; Suraiya Faroqhi; Donald Quataert (28 April 1997). An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-57455-6.
• Benjamin Braude; Bernard Lewis (1982). Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire: The central lands. v. 2. The Arabic-speaking lands. Holmes & Meier Publishers. ISBN 978-0-8419-0519-1.
• Bruce McGowan (1981). Economic Life in Ottoman Europe: Taxation, Trade, and the Struggle for Land, 1600-1800. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-24208-0.