why is turkey called rum ?

Ilayda

New member
Why is Turkey called rum?
Thus, during the Middle Ages, the Arabs called the native inhabitants of what is now Turkey, the Balkans, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine "Rûm" (literally Romans but in modern historiography often called Byzantines), called what is now Turkey and the Balkans "the land of the Rûm" and referred to the Mediterranean as "the ...