Balcanica 2017 Issue 48, Pages: 55-66
https://doi.org/10.2298/BALC1748055F
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Tracing the origin of a new meaning of the term re‘āyā in the eighteenth-century ottoman Balkans
Fotić Aleksandar (Faculty of Philosophy, Department of History, Belgrade)
Besides its usage with the primary meanings: 1) social status; 2)
subjectship, the term re‘āyā was used to denote, as many historians tend to
claim, “only non-Muslim subjects” from “sometime” in the second half of the
eighteenth and in the nineteenth century. The paper demonstrates that this
meaning of the term re‘āyā had already been in use since the first decades of
the eighteenth century, and not to the exclusion of but along with other
meanings. More frequent replacement of the neutral shari‘a term zimmī(ler)
and the usual official term kefere with the word re‘āyā should be considered
a consequence of structural social change taking place in the same century.
Keywords: Ottoman Empire, Balkans, re‘āyā, non-Muslims, eighteenth century
Project of the Serbian Ministry of Education, Science and Technological
Development, Grant no. 177003: Medieval heritage of the Balkans: institutions
and culture