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Name given to common people by Ottomans
Bosnian rayah paying tribute
A raiyah or reaya (from Arabic: رعايا raʿāyā, a plural of رعيّة raʿiya "countryman, animal, sheep pasturing, subjects, nationals, flock", also spelled raiya, raja, raiah, re'aya; Ottoman Turkish رعايا, IPA: [ɾeˈʔaːjeː]; Modern Turkishrâiya[ɾaːˈja] 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 and kul.
The raiyah made up over 90% of the general population in the millet communities. In the Muslim 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.
See also
Ryot: A land holding system developed during the Mughal rule in India.
"Raiyahs,"--all who pay the capitation tax, called the "Haraç." "This tax was levied on the whole male unbelieving population," except children under ten, old men, Christian and Jewish priests. --Finlay, Greece under Ottoman and Venetian Domination, 2856, p. 26.
Greene, p. 41, quoting Halil Inalcık
Sources
Molly Greene, A Shared World: Christians and Muslims in the Early Modern Mediterranean, Princeton, 2000. ISBN0-691-00898-1
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. ISBN0-295-96033-7.
