One Day

Ashar

Ashar (Modern Turkish: Öşür or Aşar ) was a tax in the Ottoman Empire, based on the traditional practice of muqasama (which means "sharing"), a traditional tithe in the Fertile Crescent. It was abolished on 17 February 1925 in Turkey the successor of the Ottoman Empire. Much of the Ottoman empire's tax system was inherited from earlier practices in each territory that it conquered. Muqasama had been common practice in the Mamluk empire, and much of the Middle East, even before the spread of Islam; a similar system had been used in Sassanid Persia. Muqasama was a tax directly applied to agricultural output, taking a proportion which varied between areas and between producers. These discriminatory rates caused inefficiencies; as farmers reacted to locally var… more »