avania

plural avanias

1. historicalA tax or fee imposed on foreigners under the Ottoman Empire, especially one considered to be irregular or extortionate.

   The Europeans often felt that these practices went against the capitulations, and considered them extortions – which they called avanias.

   2000, Merlijn Olnon, ‘Towards Classifying Avanias’, Friend and Rivals in the East, page 162

   3 more examples

   The merchants are considered as more immediately under the protection of the Mohassil, and therefore not so subject to the Avanias made by the Bashaw.

   1794, Alex Russell, The Natural History of Aleppo, 2nd edition, page 330

   “Khoja,” said the pasha, slowly, removing the chibouque from his mouth, and looking towards the secretary; “write that Yacob the Jew shall, before sunset, pay an avania to the pasha of one hundred piastres, for selling dhourra within the walls of the city, without authority—now Hebrew, once more we listen.”

   1846, Julia Pardoe, Miss Pardoe's Complete Works, page 55

   Ten years later, as they told their ambassador at Constantinople, Sir Thomas Bendysh, they were still loth to meddle in those ‘barbarous places’ because of the ever-present hazard of avanias.

   1935, Alfred C. Wood, A History of the Levant Company, page 63