Talk:Rum (name)

The user below points out one of many sources that claim a Syriac origin. I would like to reiterate Arthur Jeffery's 'The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qur'an' as a major source. Outside of Wikipedia, a Persian origin of the word doesn't seem to be considered likely, let alone a given. Please discuss whether a change to 'is derived from a Greek, Syriac or Middle Persian form' is more appropriate. Having read many sources, scholars of Arabic and Semitic linguistics seem to consider a Greek or Syriac origin as more likely. I haven't found a single scholar of languages that claims the word entered Arabic through Persian.

WP:REHASH, WP:JDL and WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. Do you want me to report again you so you get a range-block once more? --HistoryofIran (talk) 16:10, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

Why do you keep threatening with blocking users over disagreements? I came here to offer two references of authoritative scholars of the Arabic language of the Quran: Arthur Jeffery and Alphonso Mingana. Both of them point to a Syriac or Greek origin of the word. Neither of them even considers the possibility of a Persian origin. The claim that the word is of Persian origin is now being supported on this page by sourcing from random historians, not linguists and not scholars of Arabic and Semitic. Jeffery is as authoritative as it gets when it comes to studies of Quranic Arabic. The other user presented the following quote from Arthur Jeffery, discussing the word Rum:

'The word may have come directly from the Greek into Arabic through contacts with the Byzantine Empire such as we see among the Ghassanids, or it may be as Mingana, Syriac Influence, 98, thinks, that it came through the Syriac. It is at any rate significant that Rum occurs not infrequently in the Safaite inscriptions, cf. Littiimnu, Semitic Inscriptions, 112 ff. ; Hyckmans, Now propres, i, 315, 309, and also in the old poetry, cf. the Mu'allaqa of Tarafa, 1. 23 (Horovitz, KU, 113), and is found in the Nemara inscription (RES, i, No. 483).' — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:A458:447B:1:E14D:6906:DF02:9327 (talk) 13:08, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

And here's a quote from Mingana:

'In xxx., 10 the word Rum is used to express the Byzantines, the Greeks of Constantinople, the "New Rome" . Whatever our views may be as to the linguistic peculiarities of the word we are not at liberty to deny that it is derived from the Syriac Rumaya. Indeed the Syrians went so far in their application of the word to Byzantines that they often called simple "soldiers" Rumaye44 as if the only soldiers they knew were Byzantine soldiers.'

https://archive.org/details/mingana-a-syriac-influence-on-the-style-of-the-kuran/page/98/mode/2up (page 98) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:A458:447B:1:E14D:6906:DF02:9327 (talk) 13:23, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

So instead of reading what other editors have said, you continue with your cherry-picked WP:OR.

• "Arthur Jeffery's 'The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qur'an' as a major source."

Which says, "(Ar-Rūm)."
"xxx, 2."
"The Byzantine Empire."

"It is the common name for the Byzantine Greeks, though also used in a wider sense for all the peoples connected or thought to be connected with the Eastern Roman Empire (cf. TA, viii, 320). A considerable number of the early authorities took it as an Arabic word derived from to desire eagerly, the people being so called beause of their eagerness to capture Constantinople (Yāqūt, Mu'jam, ii, 862). Some even gave them a Semitic genealogy—LA, xv, 150, and Yāqūt ii, 861. Others, however, recognized the word as foreign, as e.g. al-Jawālīqī, Mu'arrab, 73, who is the authority followed by as-Suyūtī, Itq, 321. 5 The ultimate origin, of course, is Lat. Roma, which in Gk. is Ῥώμη..."

"The word may have come directly from the Greek into Arabic through contacts with the Byzantine Empire such as we see among the Ghassanids, or it may be as Mingana, Syriac Influence, 98, thinks, that it came through the Syriac."

So Jeffery, which you keep crowing about, states, the Arabic term is of foreign origin, ultimately originating from Latin. Also, even Jeffrey uses the term may, so such terminology should not presented as factual on Wikipedia.

Jeffery does not state that Rūm originates from Arabic nor that it was passed to other languages from Arabic.

Also which you did not find was on page 1, " So also the place-names—Bābil, Rūm, Madyan, Sabā', and many of the commonest religious terms—Shaitān, Tawrah, Injīl, Sakīna, Firdaus, Jahannam, are equally familiar to all who know the Jewish and Christian Scriptures."

And the Christian and Jewish scriptures were written when?

Compared to;

• "Let me first illustrate the peculiarity and even oddness of Anatolian local mental patterns. Muslim Anatolia under the Seljuqs was known to its neighbours by many names. I will focus on the two most prevalent designations for Anatolia: ‘Rome’ and ‘Persia’. The immediate neighbours to the East normally designated Byzantium as ‘Rome’, ‘Roman lands’ (and its inhabitants as ‘Romans’): Armenians called the land Հռոմ/Հոռոմ hor ̇om/hr ̇om, Georgians ჰრომ hrom, Syrians ܪܗܘܡܐ rhπmÈ, and Persians and Arabs روم rËm. Apparently, all these terms went back to the interconnected Aramaic, rhπmÈ and Parthian from which designated ‘Rome’ and the ‘Roman Empire’ and derived from the Greek Ῥώμη. The Parthian designation for ‘Rome’ differs from the Aramaic and Syriac phonetic shapes of the term in its spelling of the Ancient Greek aspirated rho. It was the Parthian form which subsequently was borrowed by the Pahlawi (hrπm, also the Sogdian βr’wm), Armenian and Georgian. The Arabic and New Persian languages inherited the Pahlawi hrπm with the omission of the aspirated component in the Ancient Greek rho. It was the Parthian and Aramaic form that subsequently was borrowed by the Pahlawi, Armenian, Georgian, Arabic and finally Neo-Persian and Turkish languages. The term came into common usage during the Roman conquests of the Eastern Mediterranean – that is, in the first century bc. Subsequently, Byzantium regarded itself as the continuation of the Roman Empire and was also regarded as such by its Eastern neighbours, who continued to designate the Byzantines as ‘Romans’ and their state as the ‘Roman’ state." --Rustam Shukurov, "Grasping the Magnitude: Seljuq Rum between Byzantium and Persia", in The Seljuqs and their Successors: Art, Culture and History, ed. Sheila Canby, Deniz Beyazit, Martina Rugiadi.

FYI, Pahlawi = Middle Persian. --Kansas Bear (talk) 15:17, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

Kansas Bear.

It's not 'cherry-picked'. This is as targeted as criticism can be. You folk claim that the term Rum is derived from Middle Persian, and you claim that's a settled fact. You don't present that as a 'possibility', the page doesn't say 'the term might be derived from a Middle Persian form', you open the page by stating, as if proven fact, that the term is derived from Middle Perian. In response, I presented you two of the most eminent scholars of Classical Arabic, 'ever', that say otherwise. That's not cherry-picking.

Arthur Jeffery and Alphonso Mingala are leading scholars of Quranic Arabic. Rustam Shukurov, who you for some reason privilige, is not. No one, as far as I am aware of, denies that the word Rum is derived from the Classical Arabic. Obviously, related terms existed long before its use in Classical Arabic (Greek: Roma, Syriac: Rumaya, Turfan: Hrom, etc), the point is that in an Arabo-Islamic context of the Middle Ages, the term Rum sprang up in the context of the Quran. No one denies that. The question is what the origin is of the Classical Arabic ar-Rum/Rum. Jeffery and Mingala consider a Greek or Syriac origin, not a Persian one.

Again, no one is denying that the word is of non-Arabic origin. The claim that this page makes is that the word is of Middle Persian origin.

And my point, of presenting Jeffery (again, possibly the leading expert in Quranic Arabic ever) is that even he, this eminent scholar of Classical Arabic, claimed a Greek or Syriac origin, and never once mentions a possible Persian origin. Jeffery is a serious, respected linguist, he's not in it to make blanket statements. When he says that the term 'might' be derived from Greek or Syriac, that says everything about how little evidence there is for a Persian origin (which he never even entertains as a possibility). This in itself at least should convince you to change the first sentence into something other than what it is now: where it claims, as if it's a certain, proven fact, that the term is derived from Persian.

I'm not sure what more I can do to convince you good folk that the claim of a certain Middle Persian origin is unfounded, and doesn't belong on this page. If this isn't enough, then what's the use of Wikipedia?

And one final point: the page was altered months ago by another user to have it say that the term is of a Middle Persian origin. He didn't add a single linguist as a source, yet you folk didn't object when he made those edits. 2A02:A458:447B:1:E14D:6906:DF02:9327 (talk) 16:12, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

• "And one final point: the page was altered months ago by another user to have it say that the term is of a Middle Persian origin. He didn't add a single linguist as a source, yet you folk didn't object when he made those edits."

So? Should I mention the multitude of times referenced information has been removed from other articles when it hurts certain editors' little feelings? Should I mention how an IP seems to have an intimate knowledge of Wikipedia, yet presents themselves as a "new user"? Or, should I mention the continued ethnic comments directed at other editors by an IP? Seems a certain IP falls even shorter than the grandiose expectations they have assigned to other editors.

• "In response, I presented you two of the most eminent scholars of Classical Arabic.."

And neither gave anything definite, in fact Jeffrey sank himself by contrasting Greek and Syriac with the word may.

• "When he says that the term 'might' be derived from Greek or Syriac, that says everything about how little evidence there is for a Persian origin (which he never even entertains as a possibility)."

No, that is your WP:OR, again. You should really let go of your anti-Persian narrative.

• "The claim that this page makes is that the word is of Middle Persian origin."

Does it now? Another comment on Persian. Which does not address what I have posted on this talk page, hmmm(WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT)?

• "..presenting Jeffery (again, possibly the leading expert in Quranic Arabic ever) is that even he, this eminent scholar of Classical Arabic, claimed a Greek or Syriac origin, and never once mentions a possible Persian origin."

This is not about Quranic Arabic. This concerns the origins of a particular word. What Jeffrey fails to mention is simply your own interpretation. Also, Jeffrey does not CLAIM anything, Jeffrey says "may".

• "This in itself at least should convince you to change the first sentence into something other than what it is now: where it claims, as if it's a certain, proven fact, that the term is derived from Persian."

Nope. I will do my own research. --Kansas Bear (talk) 16:43, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

Stop assuming that I'm anti-Persian. My problem is with nationalism and cultural imperialism, not with Iranians. I have attacked Arab, Turk, white, black, Spaniard and Moroccan for their nationalism. It's not about Persians and it's not about me. Forget me and forget what you think I am. Please read my comments and please try and process it without assuming anything about me.

Very simple: this page makes a hard claim, right in the first sentence, that the word Rum is of Middle Persian origin. I presented you two authoritative linguists of Classical Arabic who point to Syrian and Greek. Neither of these two eminent scholars mention a possible Persian origin. This ought to be enough to at least add the possibility of a Greek and Syriac transmission.

I don't know what more I can do to have this content changed.

'And neither gave anything definite, in fact Jeffrey sank himself by contrasting Greek and Syriac with the word may.'

Sank? So you know better than Arthur Jeffery? What makes you more of an authority than Jeffery and Mingala? Can you present a single linguist that claims that Rum is derived from a Middle Persian form?

Linguists rarely deal in definites. Linnguistics is not a hard science. If Jeffery isn't evern sure about whether the term comes from Greek or Syriac, how does Wikipedia know for certain that it comes from Middle Persian? What insight does Wikipedia have that the leading scholar of Classical Arabic in the West, ever, didn't have?

You're allowing for faulty info to exist purely out of some sort of stubbornness. 2A02:A458:447B:1:E14D:6906:DF02:9327 (talk) 17:33, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

IP, your above comment is borderlining with WP:FORUM and WP:NPA, i strongly advise you to calm down and focus on content, not editors.---Wikaviani ^{(talk) (contribs)} 18:25, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

I removed that comment, but I was being accused of bigoted motives. 2A02:A458:447B:1:2562:B53A:4DD2:A1BC (talk) 16:34, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

• "I removed that comment, but I was being accused of bigoted motives."

Here is where you removed a reference that states Rum enters Arabic via Middle Persian(Pahlavi). While changing the Lead to "is the Arabic name for Rome and Romans...".

And again.

Then you state your own personal opinion over a university source, "The term has roots in its usage in the Quran."

And again, stating The term has nothing to do with Persian term. The Arabs called the Romans 'Rum' because that's what the Greeks called themselves. Nothing to do with the Iranians. See my source

And again, stating This Persian claim has been inserted this past year or so by overly enthusiastic Iranian contributors. Typical battleground comment. Drag up perceived ethnicity of editors while ignoring what a university source states.

And again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

• "but I was being accused of bigoted motives"

So, in response to that, you made 1 battleground comment about the ethnicity of other editors, you ignored what a university source states, (ie. That the word "Rum" entered Arabic and New Persian from Middle Persian), and 8 reverts which should have resulted in you being blocked. --Kansas Bear (talk) 17:21, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the guidelines are here, but my intent wasn't to be bigoted by calling a particular user an 'overly enthusiastic Iranian contributer'. I'm a MENA individual myself, I'm constantly criticizing Middle Eastern nationalism and tribalism, and not just among Iranian folk.

All of those sources are overridden by specialist linguists who actually studied this particular field. A dozen non-specialized sources are overridden by a single Arthur Jeffery or Mingala. Because Jeffery and Mingala are actual specialists of Quranic Arabic. Jeffery wrote an entire book in which he attempts to identify the non-Arabic words in the Quran. He identified about 300 of them (30 of which he pinpoints as having Persian origins). Jeffery was also a scholar of Persian and Syriac, and he held a Chair at the Department of Near and Middle East Languages at Columbia University. These are people who spent their entire careers studying Classical Arabic and related languages of the ancient Near East. Historians like Rustam Shukurov are 'not' linguists, or scholars of the languages of the ancient Near East. We 'have' to assume that these historians are off here, and we have to give special relevance to the linguists. Otherwise, it's very easy to pick and choose. If I don't like a certain content, I can just dig in an look for convenient quotes by historians, who have no clue about a specific subject, and use their works to help sell my point of view. It's why it's important to turn to the specialists.

And I've asked you before. Present us a single linguist who claims a Persian origin for the Turko-Arabic 'Rum'. 2A02:A458:447B:1:75CA:B926:616:7385 (talk) 11:26, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

Arthur Jeffery is considered the leading authority on the loanwords that occur in the Qur'an. His 1936 'The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qur'an' is still authoritative in the field. When discussing the term Rum, as another example of a non-Arabic word in the Qur'an, he writes:

The word may have come directly from the Greek into Arabic through contacts with the Byzantine Empire such as we see among the Ghassanids, or it may be as Mingana, Syriac Influence, 98, thinks, that it came through the Syriac. It is at any rate significant that Rum occurs not infrequently in the Safaite inscriptions, cf. Littiimnu, Semitic Inscriptions, 112 ff. ; Hyckmans, Now propres, i, 315, 309, and also in the old poetry, cf. the Mu'allaqa of Tarafa, 1. 23 (Horovitz, KU, 113), and is found in the Nemara inscription (RES, i, No. 483).

He mentions Greek and Syriac as the likely transmitters of the word. He also mentions another scholar who made the case for a Syriac transmission.

The book can be found here, see page 146:

https://archive.org/details/foreignvocabular030753mbp/page/n163/mode/2up?q=byzantine

If ever there was an authoritative source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:A469:A4F1:1:D88A:D8A9:9F87:1E3F (talk) 16:06, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

The page was edited more than a month ago by an Iranian contributor to have the first sentence claim that the term is Middle Persian in origin. This is 1) by no means a fact set in stone, 2) it isn't espoused by a majority of historians, 3) it entirely ignores the only certain fact: that the Islamic and Turkish term originates in its usage in the Quran (see chapter Al-Rum of the Quran). That one certainty is skipped over and instead the first sentence flat-out states that the term is Persian in origin, as if fact.

What is the value of all of these sources, easily found by a Google Books search, that make mention of the term Rum and its historical use in the Islamic sphere, but doesn't mention a Persian link whatsoever? Are all of those sources overrided by the incidental source that suggests a Persian origin? More importantly, what evidence do those rare sources have for a Persian link?

I appeal to you to have that claim removed from the first sentence and speculate about a Persian origin further down the article.

- The claim is too controversial to have it dominate the article right in the first sentence.

- The one certain claim is that the use of the term in Islamic societies, including the Turkish, is derived from the Quranic Al-Rum.

- There is no clear evidence that Arabic took the name from Persian in particular. The form was used in Arabic as early as the Namara inscription in 328 AD. The Arabic term isn't particularly similar to the Persian form, not any more similar than it is to forms in other languages of the region.

- There are more logical sources for Arabic to loan the name from then Persian. Syriac being the dominant literary language in the classical Semitic Middle East and the Persian Empire, as well as a widely used language in northern Arabia, is the obvious one. Another more obvious trajectory is Greek, with the Arabians always having direct and intense contacts with the Greek-speaking Middle East. No need for a Persian bridge there.

My appeal is to please remove that bold claim from the first sentence. Then I would like us to have a chapter dedicated to the Middle Persian 'Rhomayig', the Syriac 'Rumi' and the Greek 'Rhomaioi' and how those relate to the Quranic 'Rumi'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:A458:447B:1:6CE0:5E0A:1D27:2EF9 (talk) 12:53, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

Repeating your personal opinion for the tenth time is not gonna make any difference (WP:REHASH). Readers might want to see the previous ANI report and current ANI report , which clearly shows that this IP is blatantly anti-Iranian and WP:NOTHERE. --HistoryofIran (talk) 12:57, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

You are the person who edited this page in the first place. You don't have pure motives. Why did you edit this page to say that the Quranic term is of Middle Persian origin? You wanted to achieve something right? You have your source or two, and you come in and just own and claim that term for your nationality, but you don't care about what the mainstream of historians say about the term. You are well aware that the vast majority of historians make no mention of a Middle Persian origin of the Quranic term. But you don't care, you've claimed the page for your own.

And I'm not anti-Iranian, I just don't like when nationalist tendencies are pushed here. I just edited the page of the Samanids to call them 'Arab-Persian', just to make a point, including references, and you immediately came in and removed that. You like to insert all these claims because it suits your sense of nationalism, but when I go an call the Samanids 'Arab-Persian' you immediately object and have that content removed.

I'm appealing to other users to please consider my objections. 2A02:A458:447B:1:6CE0:5E0A:1D27:2EF9 (talk) 13:28, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

I reverted you at the Samanid article because you removed sourced information and replaced it with information that wasn't even properly supported by the added (cherry-picked) sources. Also, thanks for admitting that you violated WP:POINT too. The more you comment the more stuff I have for ANI, please keep at it. --HistoryofIran (talk) 13:39, 25 June 2022 (UTC)