Draft:Qaisar-e-Rum

Qaisar-e-Rûm (Arabic: قيصر الروم, translit. Qaysar al-Rūm; Ottoman Turkish: قيصر روم, translit. Kayser-i Rûm; literally “Caesar of Rome”) was an imperial title used in Islamic and Ottoman sources to refer to the Roman or Byzantine emperors. After the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II adopted the title to assert his succession to the Eastern Roman Empire. The term ultimately derives from Latin Caesar, through Greek Kaisar and Arabic Qaisar, and came to symbolize universal sovereignty in both Islamic and post-Byzantine political thought.

Etymology

The word Qaisar is the Arabic and Ottoman rendering of the Latin Caesar, a title of imperial authority. In Greek it appeared as Kaisar (Καῖσαρ), in Persian and Arabic as Qaysar, and in Ottoman Turkish as Kayser. Parallel linguistic evolutions produced Kaiser in German and Tsar in Slavic languages.^[1]

In early Islamic sources

Early Islamic texts clearly distinguished between Qaisar (the ruler of the Romans/Byzantines) and Kisra (كسرى‎, the Sasanian king of Persia). Several hadiths attributed to Muhammad predict the end of both dynasties: “There will be no Kisra after this Kisra, and no Qaisar after this Qaisar, and their treasures will be spent in the path of God.”^[2] In the chronicles of al-Tabari and later Muslim historians, the term Qaisar denoted the Christian emperor of Constantinople, representing the continuation of Roman imperial authority in the East.^[3]

Ottoman adoption

Following his conquest of Constantinople in 1453, Mehmed II proclaimed himself Kayser-i Rûm (“Caesar of Rome”), asserting direct succession to the Byzantine emperors and the Roman imperial tradition.^[4] Contemporary accounts confirm this ideological claim. The Greek historian Kritoboulos of Imbros wrote that Mehmed ruled as both the “basileus of the Greeks” and the “sultan of the Muslims,” while the Ottoman bureaucrat Tursun Beg portrayed him as a universal ruler uniting the legacies of Islam and Rome.^[5]^[6]

By presenting himself as Qaisar of the Rûm, Mehmed II legitimized Ottoman rule over the Christian population of former Byzantine territories while reinforcing his authority as leader of the Muslim world. The title appeared in diplomatic and ceremonial contexts throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, though it was gradually replaced by phrases such as Sultan-ı ʿIqlīm-i Rûm (“Sultan of the Roman realm”).

Diplomatic use and symbolism

The ideological claim of Kayser-i Rûm was reflected in Ottoman diplomacy. Mehmed II and his successors regarded themselves as the sole legitimate Caesars, refusing to recognize the authority of Western “Roman Emperors.” Suleiman the Magnificent addressed Charles V only as “King of Spain,” asserting that the Roman imperial dignity had passed to the ruler of Constantinople. In coinage and official titulature, however, Ottoman sultans preferred traditional Islamic and Turco-Mongol forms such as “Sultan son of Sultan” or “Sultan of the Two Lands and Khagan of the Two Seas,” which expressed similar universalist ambitions in their own idiom.

Modern historiography

Modern historians interpret Mehmed II’s assumption of the title as a defining act in the creation of Ottoman imperial ideology.

**Halil İnalcık** viewed the claim as a political assertion of legitimate succession to Byzantium, situating the Ottomans as heirs to the Roman state.^[7]
**Cemal Kafadar** characterized Kayser-i Rûm as part of a “dual identity,” balancing Islamic legitimacy with Roman universalism.^[8]
**Gülru Necipoğlu** interpreted Mehmed’s court culture and architecture as a synthesis of Roman, Persian, and Islamic models of sovereignty.^[9]
**Colin Imber** offered a more pragmatic view, arguing that ideological titles such as Kayser-i Rûm primarily served to justify conquest and autocratic rule.

Legacy

The idea of the Ottoman sultan as Caesar of Rome persisted long after the explicit title fell out of use. European and Ottoman writers alike continued to acknowledge the empire as the Roman successor in the East, and the symbolic notion of Kayser-i Rûm remained embedded in imperial thought and ceremonial practice into the early modern period.^[10]

References

^ "Ḳayṣar". Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd ed.). Brill. 1960–2005.
^ Muslim, Ibn al-Ḥajjāj (2007). Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim. Dar al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah.
^ al-Ṭabarī, Muhammad ibn Jarīr (1997). The History of al-Ṭabarī (Taʾrīkh al-rusul wa’l-mulūk). Vol. V. Translated by Michael Fishbein. State University of New York Press. pp. 45–48.
^ İnalcık, Halil (1968). The Policy of Mehmed II toward the Greek Population of Istanbul and the Byzantine Buildings of the City. American Research Institute in Turkey. pp. 4–6.
^ Kritoboulos, Michael (1954). History of Mehmed the Conqueror. Translated by Charles T. Riggs. Princeton University Press. pp. 87–90.
^ Tursun Beg (1978). The History of Mehmed the Conqueror (Tārīh-i Ebü’l-Feth). Translated by Halil İnalcık and Rhoads Murphey. Bibliotheca Islamica. pp. 12–14.
^ İnalcık, Halil (1993). Mehmed the Conqueror (1432–1481) and His Time. Isis Press. pp. 23–27.
^ Kafadar, Cemal (1995). Between Two Worlds: The Construction of the Ottoman State. University of California Press. pp. 110–113.
^ Necipoğlu, Gülru (2005). "A Kânûn for the State, A Canon for the Arts: Conceptualizing the Classical Synthesis". Muqarnas. 22: 13–19.
^ Lewis, Bernard (1988). The Political Language of Islam. University of Chicago Press. pp. 55–57.