The rayah or reaya was a member of the tax-paying lower class of Ottoman society, in contrast to the askeri (military) and kul (slaves, including Janissaries). Ottoman subjects were initially divided into roughly two taxable classes, the military class (askeri) and working class (rayah). The term was attributed to the peasant tax-paying subjects of the Timariots, active until the disintegration of the timar system in the 16th century. A clear social distinction was made between the Muslim and Christian rayah, with legal and religious discrimination against the latter, viewed of as infidels (giaour). Although the term initially and generally was used to encompass all of the subject lower class (taxed Muslims, Christians and Jews), it was particularly attributed to the Christian (also called zimmi), mostly Eastern Orthodox communities (the Rum Millet) in the Balkans (Rumelia).
>>>PUT SHARE BUTTONS HERE<<<
👉 Rayah in the context of Devşirme
Devshirme (Ottoman Turkish: دوشیرمه, romanized: devşirme, lit. 'collecting', usually translated as "child levy" or "blood tax") was the Ottoman practice of forcibly recruiting soldiers and bureaucrats from among the children of their Balkan Christian subjects and raising them in the religion of Islam. Those coming from the Balkans came primarily from noble Balkan families and rayah classes. It is first mentioned in written records in 1438, but probably started earlier. It created a faction of soldiers and officials loyal to the Sultan. It counterbalanced the Turkish nobility, who sometimes opposed the Sultan.
The system produced a considerable number of grand viziers from the 15th century to the 17th century. This was the second most powerful position in the Ottoman Empire, after the sultan. Initially, the grand viziers were exclusively of Turk origin, but after there were troubles between Sultan Mehmed II and the Turkish grand vizier Çandarlı Halil Pasha the Younger, who was the first grand vizier to be executed, there was a rise of slave administrators (devshirme). They were much easier for the sultans to control, compared to free administrators of Turkish aristocratic extraction. The devshirme also produced many of the Ottoman Empire's provincial governors, military commanders, and divans from the 15th to the 17th century. Sometimes, the devshirme recruits were castrated and became eunuchs. Although often destined for the harem, many eunuchs of devshirme origin went on to hold important positions in the military and the government, such as grand viziers Hadım Ali Pasha, Sinan Borovinić, and Hadım Hasan Pasha.
Rayah in the context of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire
Armenians were a significant minority in the Ottoman Empire. They belonged to either the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Armenian Catholic Church, or the Armenian Protestant Church, each church serving as the basis of a millet. They played a crucial role in Ottoman industry and commerce, and Armenian communities existed in almost every major city of the empire. The majority of the Armenian population made up a reaya, or peasant class, in Western Armenia. Since the latter half the 19th century, the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire sought more autonomy and protection in what was part of the Armenian Question. Armenians were persecuted by Ottoman authorities and their Kemalist successors, especially from the latter half of the 19th century, culminating in the Armenian Genocide.