Paria

Definition of "Paria"

Derived either from the Arabic bara‘ (to be free, acquitted, cleared of a debt) or bara‘ (which in some forms means to donate, give or con- cede), was the tribute paid by the ta’ifah states of the Andalus in the eleventh century (after AD 1031) when the Umayyad dynasty had disinte- grated. The small ta’ifah states paid parias to the Chrisitian rulers. Parias were first paid to Ramon Berenguer I of Catalona during the 1040s, and soon became a widespread phenomenon. Some ta’ifah states paid multi- ple parias. Most parias stopped with the arrival of the Almoravids in 1085, putting an end to the tributary status of the southern al-Andalus.