Defining “Romans” in the Late Antique Near East: Some Preliminary Thoughts on the “Romans” in Sūrat al-Rūm

Abstract In the opening lines of the sūrah named after the “Romans,” Q Rūm 30, the qurʾānic preacher expresses his solidarity with the “Romans” who had then been defeated by the Persian army. In seeking to better understand these verses, one may start with the question: Who exactly are the “Romans” here? “Roman” was a broad, multifaceted term, as Yannis Stouraitis has lately pointed out, based mainly on sources written after the seventh century and stemming from the Greek-speaking “West” of the Byzantine Empire. In this study, using mainly Syriac sources but also some hitherto unnoticed Greek testimonies coming from the Near East, this semantic variability of the word “Roman” is shown to further expand when going East. Like in most Syriac sources, “Romans” in Q Rūm primarily means members of the Byzantine army (and state apparatus), be they ethnic Greeks, Syrians, or Arabs. At the same time, the “Romans” of this sūrah are all inhabitants, all “citizens” of the Byzantine Empire – not just its armies and magistrates. This latter sense corresponds to the broader sense in which “Romans” is used not only in Syriac, but also in Greek sources (and in other languages of the Late Antique Near East). That broader sense is one that we find in a definition by the Damascene Sophronios of Jerusalem, according to whom “Roman” is anyone “stemming from a city subject to the Romans.” Another qurʾānic passage that refers to the Byzantines (though without naming them), which has very much to do with the same geopolitical context of the Byzantine-Persian wars, Q Māʾidah 5:17, seems to criticize a “Byzantine” confidence in the invincibility of Christ and Mary. Why does the Qurʾān chose to name the Romans when expressing solidarity with them, yet leave them unnamed when criticizing them? Could it be the case that this difference between naming the “Romans” and leaving them unnamed is somehow meant to show that the solidarity with the “Romans,” as declared expressis verbis in the Sūrat al-Rūm, concerns the entire Byzantine world whereas the sharp criticism in al-Māʾidah is not general in the same sense?