Haraj

a land tax collected in the countries of the Near and Middle East. Known as harag in the Sassanid state, it was introduced as part of the tax reforms of Kavadh I and Khosrau I Anushirvan. In the caliphate, the haraj was at first exacted from the non-Muslim population, and later from Muslim landholders as well. Before the time of the Abbasids, the tax was generally levied on the basis of units of land area; in the second half of the eighth century, in some parts of the caliphate, the practice was to make taxation proportional to the harvest. In the Ottoman Empire the haraj and the jizya had merged into one by the end of the 18th century. In Egypt the haraj was replaced by the income tax in 1907.