That the Rum mean “the Byzantines” is purely Imran Hoosein’s (erroneous) view. We have already amply addressed that point and debunked it in our writings.
Rum is, according to all the classical genealogists, lexicographers etc., not any do-it-yourself modern theorist, the son of Isu (Esau), son of Ishaq, ‘alayhis-salam, who went west, and from whom the “Romans” in a broad sense are known to descend. The Rum are therefore an actual human stock (who view themselves as such).
At the time of the Prophet, Sallallahu ‘alayhi wa-Sallam, the “Rum” were identified with the Byzantines, the inheritors of the old Roman empire which, at a certain stage, split into Western Roman Empire, later swept aside by the northern “barbarians”, and Eastern Roman Empire centered in Byzantium and surviving the collapse of the former. They were thus “Romans” in that generic sense.
As we all know, the Byzantines and their Empire have been eventually removed from existence by the expansion of the Abode of Islam. Despite that, the Rum as a human group were still identified with that name in the Islamic literature, in countless texts authored thereafter; and the same term, ar-Rum, is used at length in the ahadith and athar of the events of the last cycle. It is simply farcical to contend that the Rum referred to as a living reality and as a component of eschatological happenings of cosmic significance are the long-extinct Byzantines!
They are the Western nation (that will remain by and large opposed and hostile to Islam). Besides, “European Muslims” include Slavs and other ethnicities quite distinct from the Rum.
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