The Collaborative International Dictionary
Rayah \Ra"yah\ (r[=a]"y[.a] or r[aum]"y[.a]), n. [Ar. ra'iyah a herd, a subject, fr. ra'a to pasture, guard.] A person not a Mohammedan, who pays the capitation tax.
Wiktionary
n. (context pejorative English) A member of the tax-paying lower class of Ottoman society.
Wikipedia
A rayah or reaya (from Arabic رعايا ra`aya, a plural of رعيّة ra`iya "flock, subject", also spelled raya, raja, raiah, re'aya; Ottoman Turkish رعايا ; Modern Turkish râya or reaya) was a member of the tax-paying lower class of Ottoman society, in contrast to the askeri and kul. The Rayah made up over 90% of the general Islamic population and the millet communities. In the Muslim world, Rayyah is literally subject of a government or sovereign.
The rayah (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.
But both in contemporaneous and in modern usage, it refers to non-Muslim subjects in particular, also called zimmi. The word is sometimes mistranslated as 'cattle' rather than 'flock' or 'subjects' to emphasize the inferior status of the rayah.
In the early Ottoman Empire, rayah were not eligible for military service, but starting in the late 16th century, Muslim rayah became eligible, to the distress of some of the ruling class.
Usage examples of "rayah".
Christian Rayah from the bridle-road below saluted me with such earnestness, and craved so anxiously to speak and be spoken to, that he soon brought me to a halt.
The old usage was, however, maintained with as much strictness as ever against the Christian Rayahs and Jews: not one of them could have set his foot upon the privileged path without endangering his life.