Rûm

Rûm, also "Roum" or "Rhum" (in Arabic الرُّومُ "ar-Rūm", Persian/Turkish "Rum"), is a very indefinite term used at different times in the Muslim world for Europeans generally and for the Byzantine Empire in particular, for the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm in Asia Minor, and for Greeks inhabiting Ottoman or modern Turkish territory as well as for Greek Cypriots. The name is loaned from the Byzantine Greek self-designation Ρωμιοί "Romans". The city of Rome itself, by contrast, is known in Arabic as _ar. روما "Rūmā".

Already the Qur'an includes Surat Ar-Rum (i.e., the Sura dealing with "The Romans" or "The Byzantines"). The Byzantine Greeks, as the continuation of the Roman Empire, called themselves Ρωμιοί or Ρωμαίοι "Rhomaioi", Romans, and the Arabs, therefore, called them "the Rûm", their territory "the land of the Rûm", and the Mediterranean "the Sea of the Rûm." They called ancient Greece by the name "Yūnān" (Ionia) and ancient Greeks "Yūnānī" (similar with Hebrew "Yavan" [יוון] for the country and "Yevanim" [יוונים] for the people). The ancient Romans were called either "Rūm" or sometimes "Latin'yun" (Latins). Later, because Muslim contact with the Byzantine Greeks most often took place in Asia Minor, the term Rûm became fixed there geographically and remained even after the conquest by the Seljuk Turks, so that their territory was called the land of the Seljuks of Rûm, or the Sultanate of Rûm. But as the Mediterranean was "the Sea of the Rûm", so all peoples on its north coast were called sweepingly "the Rûm".

In Al-Andalus any Christian slave girl who had embraced Islam was named "Roumiya". Also the legendary lover of King Roderic and daughter of Count Julian is named "La Cava Rumía" [Miguel de Cervantes, "Don Quixote", Part I, Chapter 41 ( [http://cvc.cervantes.es/obref/quijote/edicion/parte1/parte04/cap41/default_02.htm Spanish text] , [http://www.online-literature.com/cervantes/don_quixote/45/ English text] ).] — her affair being the putative cause of the Moorish invasion of Hispania in AD 711. The crusades introduced the Franks ("Ifranja"), and later Arabic writers recognize them and their civilization on the north shore of the Mediterranean west from Rome; so Ibn Khaldun wrote in the latter part of the 14th century.

Al-Rūmī is a nisbah designating people originating in the Byzantine empire. Historical people so designated include:
*Suhayb ar-Rumi, a companion of Muhammad
*Mawlānā Jalāl-ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhī (Rumi), the 13th century Persian poet
*Qāḍī Zāda al-Rūmī, 14th century mathematician

ee also

*Rûm Province, Ottoman Empire
*Rumelia
*Edirne Ciğeri, a Turkish meat dish also referred to as "Rumeli Ciğeri".
*Rumi calendar, a calendar based on the Julian Calendar, used by the Ottoman Empire after Tanzimat.
*Mevlana, who is sometimes referred to as "Rumi".
*Rumiye-i Suğra, the name of the region in Ottoman Empire which included Tokat, Amasya, and Sivas.
*Rumçi, another term used to refer to the Greeks during the Ottoman times.

Notes