On the Origins of Hellim (Halloumi)
As hellim continues to rise as a global culinary star, and questions and theories about it's roots gain traction, the true history and origins of this heavenly salty cheese are coming to light
Hellim (halloumi), a cheese that originated in the Eastern Mediterranean island of Kıbrıs (Cyprus), is made from a mixture of goat's and sheep's milk, and sometimes also cow's milk. Its texture is described as soft, firm and squeaky, and has a high melting point which suits it to being fried or grilled, comme il faut to the classic weekend ritual practiced by the people of this balmy summer island.
Next to Muluhiya (Mulukhiyah), Ceviz Macunu (Walnut Jam), Sulu Muhallebi (Watery Custard), Pilavına (Flaounes), Şeftali Kebab (Sheftalia), Pirohu (Pierogi), Makarna Fırında (Pastitsio), Kıbrıs Köftesi (Cyprus Meatballs) and many other culinary traditions and delights, it forms part of the island's cultural heritage and self-image.
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But sometimes national dishes are so interwoven into a nation's sense of identity, that when two nations try to lay claim to one, especially when geopolitical adversity is involved, strong emotions and conflicts can arise.
And hellim has not been sufficiently shielded from that.
Where does hellim come from?
The island of Cyprus, where Hellim comes from, is a beautiful rhapsodic jewel of an island nestled comfortably in a tight little spot in the far eastern clutches of the Mediterranean sea, right in the center of the TürkMed (this is a collapsed form of the term Turkish Mediterranean, literally meaning the Turkish areas of the Mediterranean Sea), belonging it regionally to the Middle East, the Levant and Western Asia.
Considering Cyprus is an island known for its sweat inducing heat, with the Mesarya (Mesaoria) plane alone reaching upwards of 30°C on a “not too hot” Summer’s day, and as sweat contains salt and water, and eating high salt foods can also lead to water retention, the consumption of hellim, which is exceedingly salty, does therefore make sense, as counter intuitive as it may seem at first gander.
The Eastern Mediterranean is also one of the clearest and saltiest seas in the world, and the island, tucked away in a geo-strategically important location between its mainland Türkiye to the north, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine to the east, and Egypt to the south, it has been the melting pot of a mixture of different peoples, cultures and customs, all with their own interests in the region.
And this exceptionally squidgy, squeaky and savoury cheese is one of the island's most well-known and beloved products, garnering an ubiquitous status in various countries and cultures worldwide, even gaining fame as an outstanding and unique star of the global no meat movement.
What makes hellim so important?
Trailing behind refined petroleum but bounds ahead of its next closest competition (the famous Cyprus potato) this cheese is by far the biggest commodity export of the south of the island, officially the Greek Cypriot administration of southern Cyprus (GCASC) that illegally occupies the Republic of Cyprus (ROC) government.
Hellim is also the biggest export bar-none of the north of the island, the Turkish Cypriot state, officially called the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC).
In the realm of politics and law, the south of the island, without involving the Turkish Cypriots in the process, unilaterally registered a protected designation of origin (PDO) for hellim with the European Union (EU), forcing producers in the TRNC who wish to sell their product to the EU to go through Bureau Veritas, which together with the existing Green Line Regulations serves to deliberately limit and restrict any Turkish Cypriot potential for economic growth and force unto them the Greek acquis.
This makes hellim take center-stage in the wider economic competition on the island and the conversation on bilateral relations, trade and diplomacy between the TRNC and other countries worldwide, especially as relates to the Cyprus Problem, and the ongoing multi-faceted blockade and illegally imposed isolation of the TRNC.
While the TRNC strives to work constructively with the GCASC, hellim is being weaponised by the Greek Cypriots as a tool of foreign policy rather than as part of an economic goal in and of itself - to strengthen their own economy but also to gain a strategic edge in international politics and advance their own geopolitical objectives vis-a-vis obstructing any Turkish Cypriot capacity or potential to engage in international trade, diplomacy, and disrupting the prosperity and rise of the TRNC.
The significance of claiming ownership
Where Turkish Cypriot culture traditionally resists social pressures that push for claiming sole ownership of anything on Cyprus, as well as of the homogenisation of the island’s two biggest ethnically and culturally diverse people into a single all-encompassing group identity, leaning them strongly into the culture of cooperation, sharing and equality, Greek Cypriot culture on the other hand is inherently built on the concepts of proslytisation, prepotency and control.
Central to the Greek contretemps rationale of sole-ownership and dominance of everything Cyprus - this reappropriation missive - is also the argument of who - meaning which people or culture - created hellim first, or where it really came from and therefore who can take historical “ownership” of this beautiful salty culinary gold.
Because in seeking to secure their own interests, both nationally and geopolitically, they aim to use their monolithic control of the Cyprus “government” and hellim brands to distinguish themselves from their “rivals”, the Turkish Cypriots, and to establish hellim as their national cuisine based on the socially adjudged legitimacy that would be bestowed upon them by a perceived ownership through heritage.
The question of who it really belongs to, therefore, understandably becomes a frustrating and befuddling debate for many, but even more at sea is the smaller - turn bigger - debate typically inserted into this, that is, the question of where it really comes from, or who really made it first, the implications being to say, therefore, who has a real legitimate claim to it, and the answer might not be as simple as you think.
But when someone asks who really created hellim and where did it come from, the significance, meanings, implications and challenges become much more perceivably visible and comprehensible from this lens, not least the mass spaghettied blob of an eton mess that is produced.
Establishing its origins
As with many other nights of the long knives over who has “rightful” claim to which regional delicacies around the world, there are many fraught battles generating multiple proposed origins or progenitors of hellim, but the key contenders we can say right off the bat are the people of Cyprus themselves, of which there are currently two, the Turks and the Greeks, and each claim they in-turn make diverges the potential origins of hellim to other people and places.
If you ask the Greeks, most would tell you it‘s a Greek cultural heritage passed from the Byzantines (by that they mean Greeks) to Cyprus. They view themselves as the children of the Byzantines, and as hellim has Byzantine origins, they argue, it is, therefore, unequivocally Greek.
If you ask the Turks, and this is where it gets even more confused, some would say it passed from the Arabs to the Romans (by that they mean Greeks), and from the Greeks to the Turks... others would say it passed from the Arabs to all “Cypriots” irrespective, homage to a new but failed ethnocentric nationalism... a fringe few would be able to recognise and even fewer would be able to articulate that it is in-fact Turkish.
Seldom are any of these conversations taken away from the island's humble coffee shops and rustic backgammon tables, and it all too often becomes embroiled in the trappings of discombobulated oral befuddle and confused and hot-headed banter.
But whichever opinion you choose to hold, one thing is abundantly clear: no one can really agree on who made it first, or how it came to be on Cyprus, except, everyone across the board can concede it is currently an intractable cultural heritage of both parties to the island, the indigenous Turkish Cypriots but also the Greeks.
And without digressing to the history of the Byzantine Empire, which contrary to popular discourse was in-fact Roman, not Greek...1 or of the Arabs, a reference to Egypt, that was at the time ruled by the Mamluk sultanate, which was a Turkic empire... we can concede that it is useful to look at all these claims to hellim, in particular, the history of the cheese - and indeed cheesemaking itself - through different sources, but also within the context of different disciplinary lenses which would then add a certain robustness to whatever conclusions can be drawn, reviewed and cross-verified.
And now with all that out of the way, let us now begin this journey and finally start to unravel the true origin of hellim.
The Latin Connection
Now as one last point of business we need to disclose our initial findings that the earliest known descriptions of modern day hellim were first recorded in the mid-16th century by Italian visitors to Cyprus,23 when the island was under Venetian suzerainty. During this period it saw the purveyance of Ottoman (Turkish) culture, to varying extents, and was soon to be under Ottoman suzerainty. This also followed a period of joint Frankish-Mamluk (also Turkish) suzerainty. And parts of the island had been predominantly populated by culturally Turkic people since atleast the 11th-12th centuries CE.
This is where hellim is first recorded ergo this is where hellim’s history as hellim begins.4 Mid-16th century Cyprus. Latin-dominated Turkish-influenced Venetian Cyprus, to be exact. So we’ll have to take this into account with everything we’ll go into.
The Roman Connection
If we first take a look into the history of cheesemaking in the region, but also afford some effort into tracing the etymological origins and meanings of the word, we can start to unwind the ragged tapestries of history and see what lies within the gallows for the disingenuous, and what better place for us to start than with the most common known and without a doubt the most prevalent origin story of hellim, as popularised by the Greeks, that is, that "hellim dates back to the Byzantine period (395-1191 CE)"
Now I can already say right from the start what the outcome of this was and then go deeper into the how and why.
Simply put, no matter how hard I tried to substantiate this, no matter how hard I tried to find evidence to support this, no matter what debates I found myself embroiled in and no matter what origin stories I had conjured and then investigated, it is simply just empirically impossible to evidence or associate the existence or even any knowledge of hellim or the hellim making process, or the origin of the word, with any part or people of the Eastern Roman Empire, or the period in which it existed.
But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.
Let’s start with looking at this through the history of cheesemaking point first, because it offers many clues and builds us our context.
Though there is no conclusive evidence indicating where cheesemaking itself originated, and Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East, and the Sahara have all been noted as possible places of origin, the production of cheese itself predates recorded history, beginning well over 7,000 years ago,567 and has most certainly existed on Cyprus too.
However, just as it is impossible to try and associate the existence or knowledge of cheesemaking with an exact location of origin, it is also impossible to try and associate the existence or knowledge of hellim, or the method of making hellim, or the origin of the word with the Romans, or the period of history in which the Eastern Roman Empire existed, or anywhere under Roman suzerainty or influence, especially when other cheeses are also known to have been documented throughout that period including on Cyprus, but not hellim.8
This then logically leads us to question, also out of fairness: "is it perhaps possible that hellim existed then and was in-fact referred to, but just not explicitly with that name? Could it have been mentioned under another name? Or described perhaps?”
But this would lead us to the follow up questions of whether our initial findings that the earliest known descriptions of modern day hellim, which were first recorded in the mid-16th century by Italian visitors to Cyprus, whether this needs to be challenged?
Do we need to go against the status quo of the established fact? Because we already know that this is where and when hellim is first mentioned, this is when hellim first appears in the historical record, not in any part or period of the Eastern Roman Empire, but Venetian Cyprus.
But we also already mentioned that other cheeses were described in the Eastern Roman Empire. So for arguments sake, can any of them recreate or produce hellim or anything like it? Or is there anything to suggest that something by the Eastern Roman Empire influenced or became a progenitor for hellim?
The answer to all of this is also no.
This then leads us to have to concede that it is simply not possible to attribute the origin of hellim to the period in question, that is, to the Eastern Roman Empire, and any claims that it comes from the Eastern Roman Empire simply does not stand up.
There is simply no evidence for it, and especially where other cheeses were documented during the Byzantine period but not hellim, this makes it a double whammy.
We can conclude with certainty that hellim was not invented - nor was hellim or anything like it made - by the Byzantines.
And just for added robustness, we can also compare this with what we said about the Latin suzerainty of the island and the Turkish presence and influence on the island to observe that attributing the origin of hellim to where the island would have seen the purveyance of Greek speaking or Orthodox Christian or Byzantine culture and customs, is simply not substantiable.
The Egyptian Connection
But what of the claim that hellim could be of Arab, or to be specific, Medieval Egyptian origin?
If we look specifically at the etymological origin of the word, can we build a wider picture that doesn't just focus on its "appearance" or “description” in the historical record as we did with the previous case?
The etymology of the word offers us a great insight as to the possible cultural origins of hellim, as well as shines a light on the lesser known purveyance of certain cultures and languages on Cyprus during that period.
The English name for hellim, “halloumi”, for example, is derived from the Modern Greek “χαλλούμι” of almost identical pronunciation, which in turn comes from the Turkish "hellim".
Alternatively, however, several pro-hellenic scholars and food historians argue that the etymology of the modern Greek word “halloumi” is from the ancient Coptic (Egyptian) “ialom” or “hallum” — meaning “cheese”.
But then examining this in the context of the ancient coptic world, which hails from the Levant but primarily Egypt, this then suggests it could actually be of Egyptian origin.9101112
There are others who argue it may be derived from the Greek word "almi" — meaning salty water.13 And this is consistent with the fact that a salty brine accompanies the cheese and adds to its better preservation, and is also applied to the argument that the cheese is a Byzantine creation, although, this again is too easily shrugged aside by the incontestable fact that this too is itself ultimately from the ancient Coptic “ialom” or “hallum”, once more suggesting an Egyptian origin, not a Greek origin.
So if we were to track the etymology of the word starting with English, we can derive the following:
The English name “halloumi” is derived from modern Greek: “χαλλούμι” [xaˈlumi], “halloumi” which itself is from Turkish "hellim", while there is a fringe possibility it could also be from Cypriot Maronite Arabic “xallúm”, “hallum”,14 which is itself from Egyptian Arabic: “حلوم” “ḥallūm” [ħalˈluːm],15 which is a loanword from the ancient Coptic “ϩⲁⲗⲱⲙ” “halom” (Sahidic) and “ⲁⲗⲱⲙ” “alom” (Bohairic) “cheese”, the latter referring to a cheese that was in fact produced and eaten in medieval Egypt.
But by taking this etymological analysis as a potential indicator of a possible connection, one then has to deserve that this leads into a possible medieval Egyptian connection, as well as who the medieval Egyptians were, and long story short, that hellim, therefore, may very well be a Mamluk (Turkic) import.
Bringing everything together
By this point we could really go into things deeply and produce an entire book or even a peer-reviewed study worthy of being published in the most highly reputable of journals, but for the purpose of this article, and the brevity people just doing some general interest reading would desire, it's best to just surmise with the following:
✅ 1. We can attribute the first occurrence of hellim in the historical record to mid-16th century Cyprus
✅ 2. Cyprus was under Venetian suzerainty when hellim was first mentioned
✅ 3. Parts of the island were predominantly populated by Turkic speaking people when hellim was first mentioned
✅ 4. Cyprus also saw the strong purveyance of Turkish culture and customs, to varying extents and in different areas, when hellim was first mentioned
✅ 5. Hellim was first mentioned on Cyprus long after the Eastern Roman Empire had already ceased to exist
Taking all of the above as our main point of reference, but in particular the explicit reference to hellim during that period, and then looking into the etymological analysis of the word hellim we are then forced to concede:
✅ 6. The etymology of "hellim" is of medieval Egyptian origin.
✅ 7. The etymological meaning of "hellim" is actually not a very unique or creative choice in that it simply means “cheese”
✅ 8. The etymological origin word for “hellim” - “hallum”/“halom”/“ialom”/“alom” - was also used to refer to a brine-based cheese - much like hellim today - that was produced and consumed in medieval (Turkic) Egypt.16
This then gives us a subject related to cheesemaking (brine-based cheesemaking), a time frame and place (medieval, or Mamluk Turkic Egypt), which we can examine further, upon which we discover:
✅ 9. The island of Cyprus saw the purveyance of medieval Egyptian (Turkic) culture and customs - particularly the language - and was under their joint suzerainty when hellim came to be on Cyprus, and to which the origin of the term hellim is attested.
✅ 10. In addition to point 9, that also opens up the possibility that beyond just Coptic or Egyptian Arabic, other medieval Egyptian (Mamluk, Turkic) culture and customs may have also purveyed on the island of Cyprus.
✅ 11. In addition to points 9 and 10, and remembering that: a) the first mentions of hellim are attested to the mid-16th century, and b) we can isolate and give particular attention to that period and the etymological source: medieval Egypt, or rather, when the Turkic/Circassian Mamluks were sovereign in Egypt,17 and especially where they had joint suzerainty of Cyprus after conquering and liberating it to the status of a dominion and tributary state, this then opens up the real possibility of the etymological origin of hellim being attested to a period where hellim’s place of etymological origin (Egypt) and even Cyprus itself, though to a different extent, saw the purveyance of Turkic culture and customs, though as we already know, the etymological origin of "hellim" can already be attested to the dominions of the Mamluk Turks, meaning that we may very well have to consider hellim to be yet another Turkic import to the island.
And finally:
✅12. If we take point 8 seriously and have a solid look at the history of cheesemaking in medieval Egypt, particularly, cheeses referred to as simply “hallum” and/or going through the same method of production and use i.e. being washed/salted in brine, we can quickly discover that one particular medieval Egyptian cheese was Kaysi cheese, made from the milk of Khaysiyya cows of Damietta. Kaysi cheese is mentioned as early as the eleventh century CE, and a 15th century author describes the cheese being washed, which may imply that it was salted in brine, much like hellim. The fact that this cheese, which is almost identical to hellim, especially in terms of production method, and in stark juxtaposition to the claims of “similar” cheese during the Byzantine era, which is not true, the Mamluk equivalents have clear parallels and existed in hellim’s place of etymological origin and before Cyprus saw the purveyance or at least exchange of culture and customs from Egypt, meaning, this may therefore have been a very likely ancestor of our modern day hellim.(15)
Spotting the Difference
Now on that last point we just made, there are a number of noticeable differences between hellim and halum, of course, most notably perhaps that the former traditionally uses sheep or goat milk, not cow milk, and that this too has a simple answer to it: medieval Egyptian cheese mostly used buffalo or cows' milk, with less use of goat and sheep milk than in other countries of the region.(15)
And this is still a fact today, although the traditional method of basing hellim production on goat or sheep milk has been picked up by places such as the U.K. but abandoned by Cyprus in favour of cow’s milk.(9)
Also, although the modern production of hellim does include cow’s milk, which is cheaper and more abundant, and is not unique to Cyprus, there are still a number of noticeable differences between the production, storing, and consumption of what we generally refer to as hellim and the equivalent produced in modern day Egypt today, which differs slightly from the description of what we are purporting to be a likely predecessor for hellim.
Needless to say, bringing us back to the point that hellim is purported to be a Byzantine cheese, the effect being to also argue the similarly flawed argument that this somehow implies hellim has a Greek origin, this simply doesn’t stand up.
Indeed, based on the above, and contrary to strenuously feigning the impossible to paint hellim as a Greek product of Byzantine origin, which is a rhetorical drivel-brag, I would instead suggest that it is of medieval Egyptian or Turkic origin, particularly there’s much more room to contest for the latter, and I would argue that much like strained yoghurt, which is often marketed as “Greek yoghurt”, it may just be another cultural import, or if you know your modern Greek history, it could very well be another politically motivated reappropriation of Turkic origin products by the modern Greeks.
I suggest more research is done into the history of cheesemaking on Cyprus, as well as on how it may have spread and developed there, particularly, the history of cheesemaking in Egypt and other dominions of the Turks and how that may have spread to or influenced cheesemaking on Cyprus.
But for now, this is what we know:
Place of Origin = Cyprus
First Documented = Venetian Cyprus
Etymological Origin = Medieval (Turkic) Egypt
Possible Predecessor = Medieval (Turkic) Egyptian cheeses
Medieval Egypt = Mamluk Turkish Sultanate
16th Century Demographics of Cyprus = Included Turcopole, Karamanid Turks, Mamluk Turks, Ottoman Turks etc…
Many areas of the island were predominantly populated by Turkic people since the 11-12th centuries CE
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Extra Info About Cheese
The first cheese may have been made by people in the Middle East or by nomadic Turkic tribes in Central Asia. Since animal skins and inflated internal organs have, since ancient times, provided storage vessels for a range of foodstuffs, it is probable that the process of cheese making was discovered accidentally by storing milk in a container made from the stomach of an animal, resulting in the milk being turned to curd and whey by the rennet from the stomach.
There is a widely-told legend about the discovery of cheese by an Arab trader who used this method of storing milk.
According to Pliny the Elder, cheesemaking had become a sophisticated enterprise by the time the Roman Empire came into being.
The earliest archaeological evidence of cheesemaking has been found in Egyptian tomb murals, dating to about 2000 BCE.
According to ancient Greek mythology, Aristaeus, the cyclops of Homer's Odyssey (8th century BCE) can be accredited with the Greeks' discovery of cheese, as the book describes the mythological being making and storing sheep's and goats' milk cheese.
Columella's De Re Rustica (circa 65 CE) details a cheesemaking process involving rennet coagulation, pressing of the curd, salting, and aging.
Pliny's Natural History (77 CE) devotes a chapter (XI, 97) to describing the diversity of cheeses enjoyed by Romans of the early Empire.
Rome spread a uniform set of cheesemaking techniques throughout much of Europe, and introduced cheesemaking to areas without a previous history of it.
Many of the cheeses we know best today were first recorded in the late Middle Ages or after... cheeses such as cheddar around 1500 CE, Parmesan in 1597, Gouda in 1697, and Camembert in 1791.
In 1546, John Heywood wrote in Proverbes that "the moon is made of a greene cheese."
The first factory for the industrial production of cheese opened in Switzerland in 1815.
The Mamluk Turks that we've emphasised quite a bit here had a presence on Cyprus from as early as the 15th century, even conquering the island in 1426. The Ottoman Turks have also been documented as living there as early as the 1400s, mostly after being taken there by Cyprus-based pirates returning to the island from raids in Asia Minor. Considering that the Turks had long been known for the production of dairy products such as yoghurts and cheeses, but especially that the origins of cheesemaking have been attested to their ancestors by various scholars, it wouldn't be very farfetched to put all of this together with the above and argue that there may be even the slightest possibility that hellim production on the island may be attested to them.
As we discussed the Eastern Roman Empire (posthumously referred to as the Byzantines by pro-hellenic scholars), the Ottomans and the Mamluks, here is a map of the region
Cyprus only saw the purveyance of Orthodox culture and customs (following the Schism of 1054), and the Greek language which the religion held onto, but it was not dominated, ruled, governed or led by the Greeks, who by this point had already been extinct. Even the term “Byzantine Empire" itself is a term created after the end of the realm; it was otherwise known as the Eastern Roman Empire; its citizens referred to their empire simply as the Roman Empire (Greek: Βασιλεία Ῥωμαίων, tr. Basileia Rhōmaiōn; Latin: Imperium Romanum), or Romania (Ῥωμανία), and to themselves as "Romans". Similarly, the Turks used the term "Rum" to refer to their Roman neighbours, as well as to their remnants after the Ottoman conquest of the region, and this continues to be used in reference to the modern Greeks today. (Also See: Kazhdan, Aleksandr Petrovich; Epstein, Ann Wharton (1985). Change in Byzantine Culture in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-05129-4)
P. Papademas, "Halloumi Cheese", p. 117ff, in Adnan Tamime, ed., Brined Cheeses in the Society of Dairy Technology series, Blackwell 2006, ISBN 1-4051-2460-1
Patapiou, Nasa (2006). "Leonardo Donà in Cyprus - A future Doge in the Karpass Peninsula (1557)" (PDF). Cyprus Today. Press and Information Office, Ministry of Interior, Nicosia, Cyprus. p. 8.
Robinson, R. K. – Tamime, A. Y. (1991). Feta and Related Cheeses. Woodhead Publishing. p. 144. ISBN 1-85573-278-5. “(Hellim) is a semi-hard to hard, unripened cheese that, traditionally, is made from either sheep's milk or goat's milk or a mixture of the two... the cheese has its origins in Cyprus...”
McClure, Sarah B.; Magill, Clayton; Podrug, Emil; Moore, Andrew M. T.; Harper, Thomas K.; Culleton, Brendan J.; Kennett, Douglas J.; Freeman, Katherine H. (5 September 2018). "Fatty acid specific δ13C values reveal earliest Mediterranean cheese production 7,200 years ago". PLOS ONE. 13 (9): e0202807. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0202807. PMC 6124750. PMID 30183735.
Pennsylvania State University. Evidence of 7,200-year-old cheese making found on the Dalmatian Coast. 5 September 2018.
Maya Wei-Haas. Hints of 7,200-Year-Old Cheese Create a Scientific Stink. National Geographic. 5 September 2018.
Goldstein, Darra – Merkle, Kathrin – Parasecoli, Fabio – Mennell, Stephen - Council of Europe (2005). Culinary cultures of Europe: identity, diversity and dialogue. Council of Europe. p. 121. ISBN 92-871-5744-8. Note: the methods of making cheeses such as hellim and feta are purported to have originated sometime in the Medieval Byzantine period, but this doesn’t stand up to scrutiny when it doesn’t differentiate between associating the method of production with the actual cheese, and when although feta cheese in particular is recorded to have existed during the Byzantine period under the name prósphatos (Greek: πρόσφατος 'recent' or 'fresh'), hellim was not, but was instead first recorded in the mid-16th century long after the Byzantines had already ceased to exist.
Jean Christou. Cyprus Produced Halloumi Inferior and Industrial UK Cheesemakers Say. Cyprus Mail. 08 November 2015.
Oxford Dictionary: “halloumi. Origin: Egyptian Arabic ḥalūm, probably from Arabic ḥaluma "to be mild".
Collins Dictionary: “halloumi | haloumi. Origin: probably from Arabic haluma be mild.
Wiktionary. “halloumi | halloumis [plural] Origin: Greek χαλλούμι, derived from the Greek word "almi" - salty water. The name probably linked with the salty brine which accompanies the cheese and adds to its better preservation. Although may also be from Coptic ialom.”
Borg, Alexander (2004). A Comparative Glossary of Cypriot Maronite Arabic (Arabic-English): With an Introductory Essay. Brill. pp. 11, 209–210. ISBN 9789004131989.
Ibid.
Egyptian cheese. Wikipedia. “According to the medieval philosopher Al-Isra'ili, in his day there were three types of cheese: "a moist fresh cheese which was consumed on the same day or close to it; there was an old dry cheese; and there was a medium one in between." The first would have been unripened cheese made locally from sour milk, which may or may not have been salted. The old dry cheeses would have often been imported,(Note: Cheese was also imported, and the common hard yellow cheese, rumi takes its name from the Arabic word for "Roman". Also, in the 3rd century BC there are records of imported cheese from the Greek island of Chios, with a twenty-five percent import tax being charged. See: Kindstedt 2012, p. 74) and were cheeses ripened by rennet enzymes or bacteria.(See: Lewicka 2011, p. 230) The nature of the "medium" cheese is less certain, and may have referred to preserved fresh cheeses, evaporated milk or cheese similar to Indian paneer, where the addition of vegetable juices makes the milk coagulate.(See: Lewicka 2011, p. 231)”
The Mamluk Sultanate was a medieval Turkic realm spanning Egypt, the Levant, and Hejaz. It lasted from the overthrow of the Ayyubid dynasty in 1250 until the Ottoman conquest in 1517. Its capital was Cairo. Prior to establishing the sultanate, in 1426, Mamluk soldiers conquered the island of Cyprus, then the Lusignan Kingdom of Cyprus, where Europeans had been growing sugar with the work of African slaves, and they made it a tributary state. Cyprus continued paying tribute to the Mamluks even through Venetian rule. In 1440, they attacked Rhodes, but they could not take it. By 1517, the Ottomans defeated the Mamluks and took over their empire. The word Mamluk means ‘owned’ and the Mamluks were not native to Egypt but were always slave soldiers, mainly Qipchak Turks from Central Asia. The Bahri Mamluks (1250–1382) were mainly natives of southern Russia and the Burgi (1382–1517) comprised chiefly of Circassians from the Caucasus. As steppe people, they had more in common with the Mongols than with the peoples of Syria and Egypt among whom they lived. And they kept their garrisons distinct, not mixing with the populace in the territories. The contemporary Arab historian Abu Shama noted after the Mamluk victory over the Mongols at Ayn Jalut in 1260 that, ‘the people of the steppe had been destroyed by the people of the steppe’. One of the many official names of Mamluk dynasty was dawlat al-atrak/dawlat al-turk/al-dawla al-turkiyya that meant “The state of the Turks”. Another official name was dawlat al-jarakisa that meant “the period of the Circassians”. See: James Waterson. Who Were the Mamluks?. History Today. 5 September 2018; Mamluk Sultanate. Wikipedia; Mamluks. Medieval Chronicles.