sultan

Etymology

The word sultan comes from the Arabic term sultan, which in classical Arabic denotes authority, power, or legitimate rule. In early Arabic usage the term referred to authority itself rather than a specific office or ruler. Only later did the word come to denote a sovereign who exercised such authority.

History of the term

The word derives from the Arabic and Semitic root salaṭa "to be hard, strong". The noun sulṭān initially designated a kind of moral authority or spiritual power (as opposed to political power), and it is used in this sense several times in the Qur'an.

In the early Muslim world, ultimate power and authority was theoretically held by the caliph, who was considered the leader of the caliphate. The increasing political fragmentation of the Muslim world after the 8th century, however, challenged this consensus. Local governors with administrative authority held the title of amīr (أمير, traditionally "commander" or "emir", later also "prince") and were appointed by the caliph, but in the 9th century some of these became de facto independent rulers who founded their own dynasties, such as the Aghlabids and Tulunids. Towards the late 10th century, the term "sultan" begins to be used to denote an individual ruler with practically sovereign authority, although the early evolution of the term is complicated and difficult to establish.

The first major figure to clearly grant himself this title was the Ghaznavid ruler Mahmud (r. 998–1030 CE) who controlled an empire over present-day Afghanistan and the surrounding region. Soon after, the Great Seljuks adopted this title after defeating the Ghaznavid Empire and taking control of an even larger territory which included Baghdad, the capital of the Abbasid caliphs. The early Seljuk leader Tughril Bey was the first leader to adopt the epithet "sultan" on his coinage. While the Seljuks acknowledged the caliphs in Baghdad formally as the universal leader of the Muslim community, their own political power clearly overshadowed the latter. This led to various Muslim scholars – notably Al-Juwayni and Al-Ghazali – attempting to develop theoretical justifications for the political authority of the Seljuk sultans within the framework of the formal supreme authority of the recognized caliphs. In general, the theories maintained that all legitimate authority derived from the caliph, but that it was delegated to sovereign rulers whom the caliph recognized. Al-Ghazali, for example, argued that while the caliph was the guarantor of Islamic law (shari'a), coercive power was required to enforce the law in practice and the leader who exercised that power directly was the sultan.

The position of sultan continued to grow in importance during the period of the crusades, when leaders who held the title of "sultan" (such as Salah ad-Din and the Ayyubid dynasty) led the confrontation against the crusader states in the Levant. Views about the office of the sultan further developed during the crisis that followed the destruction of Baghdad by the Mongols in 1258, which eliminated the remnants of Abbasid political power. Henceforth, the surviving descendants of the Abbasid caliphs lived in Cairo under the protection of the Mamluks and were still nominally recognized by the latter. However, from this time on they effectively had no authority and were not universally recognized across the Sunni Muslim world. As protectors of the line of the Abbasid caliphs, the Mamluks recognized themselves as sultans and the Muslim scholar Khalil al-Zahiri argued that only they could hold that title. Nonetheless, in practice, many Muslim rulers of this period were now using the title as well. Mongol rulers (who had since converted to Islam) and other Turkish rulers were among those who did so.

Feminine forms

A feminine form of sultan, used by Westerners, is sultana or sultanah and this title has been used legally for some (not all) Muslim women monarchs and sultan's mothers and chief consorts. However, Turkish and Ottoman Turkish also uses sultan for imperial lady, as Turkish grammar uses the same words for both women and men (such as Hurrem Sultan and Sultan Suleiman Han (Suleiman the Magnificent)). The female leaders in Muslim history are correctly known as "sultanas". However, the wife of the sultan in the Sultanate of Sulu is styled as the "panguian" while the sultan's chief wife in many sultanates of Indonesia and Malaysia are known as "permaisuri", "Tunku Ampuan", "Raja Perempuan", or "Tengku Ampuan". The queen consort in Brunei especially is known as Raja Isteri with the title of Pengiran Anak suffixed, should the queen consort also be a royal princess.

Compound ruler titles

These are generally secondary titles, either lofty 'poetry' or with a message, e.g.:

Mani Sultan – Manney Sultan (meaning the "Pearl of Rulers" or "Honoured Monarch") – a subsidiary title, part of the full style of the Maharaja of Travancore

Sultan of Sultans – the sultanic equivalent of the style King of Kings

Certain secondary titles have a devout Islamic connotation; e.g., Sultan ul-Mujahidin as champion of jihad (to strive and to struggle in the name of Allah).

Sultanic Highness – a rare, hybrid western-Islamic honorific style exclusively used by the son, daughter-in-law and daughters of Sultan Hussein Kamel of Egypt (a British protectorate since 1914), who bore it with their primary titles of Prince (Amir; Turkish: Prens) or Princess, after 11 October 1917. They enjoyed these titles for life, even after the Royal Rescript regulating the styles and titles of the Royal House following Egypt's independence in 1922, when the sons and daughters of the newly styled king (malik Misr, considered a promotion) were granted the title Sahib(at) us-Sumuw al-Malaki, or Royal Highness.

Sultan-ul-Qaum – a title meaning King of the Nation, given to 18th-century Sikh leader Jassa Singh Ahluwalia by his supporters

Princely and aristocratic titles

By the beginning of the 16th century, the title sultan was carried by both men and women of the Ottoman dynasty and was replacing other titles by which prominent members of the imperial family had been known (notably khatun for women and bey for men). This usage underlines the Ottoman conception of sovereign power as family prerogative.

Western tradition knows the Ottoman ruler as "sultan", but Ottomans themselves used "padişah" (emperor) or "hünkar" to refer to their ruler. The emperor's formal title consisted of "sultan" together with "khan" (for example, Sultan Suleiman Khan). In formal address, the sultan's children were also entitled "sultan", with imperial princes (Şehzade) carrying the title before their given name, and imperial princesses carrying it after. For example: Şehzade Sultan Mehmed and Mihrimah Sultan, son and daughter of Suleiman the Magnificent. Like imperial princesses, the living mother and main consort of the reigning sultan also carried the title after their given names, for example: Hafsa Sultan, Suleiman's mother and first valide sultan, and Hürrem Sultan, Suleiman's chief consort and first haseki sultan. The evolving usage of this title reflected power shifts among imperial women, especially between the Sultanate of Women, as the position of main consort eroded over the course of the 17th century, with the main consort losing the title of "sultan", which was replaced by "kadin", a title related to the earlier "khatun". Henceforth, the mother of the reigning sultan was the only person of non imperial blood to carry the title "sultan".

In Kazakh Khanate, a Sultan was a lord from the ruling dynasty (a direct descendants of Genghis Khan) elected by clans, i.e. a kind of prince. The best of sultans was elected as khan by people at Kurultai.

Military rank

In a number of post-caliphal states under Mongol or Turkic rule, there was a feudal type of military hierarchy. These administrations were often decimal (mainly in larger empires), using originally princely titles such as khan, malik, amir as mere rank denominations.

In the Persian empire, the rank of sultan was roughly equivalent to that of a modern-day captain in the West; socially in the fifth-rank class, styled 'Ali Jah.

Current sultans

Sultans of sovereign states

Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, Sultan of Brunei

Sultan Haitham bin Tariq, Sultan of Oman (authentically referred to as Hami), since 1744 (assumed the formal title of Sultan in 1861)

Sultans within federal monarchies

Sultan Ibrahim Ismail, Sultan of Johor

Sultan Sallehuddin, Sultan of Kedah

Sultan Muhammad V, Sultan of Kelantan

Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri'ayatuddin, Sultan of Pahang

Sultan Nazrin Shah, Sultan of Perak

Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah, Sultan of Selangor

Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin, Sultan of Terengganu

Sultan with executive power within republics

Sri Sultan Hamengkubuwono X, Sultan and Governor of Yogyakarta

Former sultans and sultanates

Sultanates in the Balkans & Anatolia

Sultanate of Rum

Ottoman Empire

Caucasus

Elisu Sultanate and a few others. A sultan ranked below a khan.

Levant & Egypt

Abbasid Caliphate

Seljuk Empire (de jure)

Emirate of Damascus (de jure)

Emirate of Aleppo (de jure)

Zengid dynasty (de jure)

Nur al-Din Zengi

Ayyubid Sultans

Mamluk Sultans

Ottoman Imposters

Hain Ahmed Pasha (self proclaimed)

Ali Bey al-Kabir (as shaykh-al-balad)

Abu al-Dhahab (as shaykh-al-balad)

The title of Sultan of Egypt was later restored by the Muhammad Ali dynasty, and was used between the 19th of December 1914 and the 16th of March 1922 during the British protectorate

Arabia

in present-day Yemen, various small sultanates of the defunct Aden Protectorate and South Arabia:

Audhali, Fadhli, Haushabi, Kathiri, Lahej, Lower Aulaqi, Lower Yafa, Mahra, Qu'aiti, Subeihi, Upper Aulaqi, Upper Yafa and the Wahidi sultanates

in present-day Saudi Arabia:

Sultans of Nejd

Sultans of the Hejaz

Maghreb

in Algeria: Sultanate of Tuggurt, Sultans of Tlemcen

in Morocco, until Mohammed V changed the style to Malik (king) on August 14, 1957, maintaining the subsidiary style Amir al-Mu'minin (Commander of the Faithful)

Sub-saharan Africa

In Cameroon:

Bamoun (Bamun, 17th century, founded uniting 17 chieftaincies) 1918 becomes a sultanate, but in 1923 re-divided into the 17 original chieftaincies.

Bibemi, founded in 1770 – initially styled lamido

Mandara Sultanate, since 1715 (replacing Wandala kingdom); 1902 part of Cameroon

Rey Bouba Sultanate founded 1804

in the Central African Republic:

Bangassou created c. 1878 – 14 June 1890 under Congo Free State protectorate; 1894 under French protectorate; 1917 Sultanate suppressed by the French.

Dar al Kuti – French protectorate since 12 December 1897

Rafaï c. 1875 – 8 April 1892 under Congo Free State protectorate; 31 March 1909 under French protectorate; 1939 Sultanate suppressed

Zémio –c. 1872 established; 11 December 1894 under Congo Free State protectorate; 12 April 1909 under French protectorate; 1923 Sultanate suppressed

in Chad:

Baguirmi (main native title: Mbang)

Wada'i (main native title: Kolak), successor state to Birgu

Dar Sila (actually a wandering group of tribes)

in Niger: Arabic alternative title of the following autochthonous rulers:

the Amenokal of the Aïr confederation of Tuareg

Persia and Central Asia

Ghaznavid Empire; its ruler, Mahmud of Ghazni, was the first Muslim sovereign to be known as sultan.

Great Seljuk Empire

Timurid Empire

Sultans of Baneh (In Kurdistan, members of the Ekhtiyar al-Din family governed Baneh as Sultans defending against the Ottoman frontier)

Afghan Kingdom: Sultan had a different meaning. It was a high title of honour, superior to Amir and Sardar, but ranking below Shah.

Kazakh Khanate

Indian superregion

Bahmani Sultanate: Bahmani Shahs

Sultanate of Bengal: Ilyas Shahi, Ganesha, Habshi, Hussain Shahi, Muhammad Shah and Karranis

Sultanates of the Deccan:

Adil Shahi of Bijapur

Barid Shahi of Bidar

Imad Shahi of Berar

Nizam Shahi of Ahmednagar

Qutb Shahi of Golconda

Sultanate of Delhi: Mamluks, Khiljis, Tughlaqs, Sayyids and Lodis

Sultanate of Gujarat: Muzaffarids

Sultanate of Jaunpur: Sharqi dynasty

Sultanate of Kandesh: Faruqi dynasty

Sultanate of Malwa: three dynasties

Sultanate of Madurai

Sultanate_of_Mysore: Kingdom of Mysore between 1761 and 1799

Sultanate of Laccadive and Cannanore: Arakkal Kingdom

Sultanate of Kashmir: Shahmirids and Chaks

Sultanate of Maldives

Sultanate of Hunnur

Southeast and East Asia

In Indonesia (formerly in the Dutch East Indies) from west to east:

In Sumatra

Aceh Sultanate (full style Sultan Berdaulat Zillullah fil-Alam)

Sultanate of Asahan

Sultanate of Jambi

Sultanate of Deli

Sultanate of Indragiri

Sultanate of Langkat (previous style Raja)

Kotapinang Sultanate

Bilah Sultanate

Palembang Sultanate, also holding the higher title of Susuhunan

Sultanate of Pagaruyung

Sultanate of Peureulak

Riau-Lingga Sultanate

Samudera Pasai Sultanate

Sultanate of Serdang

Sultanate of Siak

In the Riau Archipelago: Sultanate of Riau-Lingga by secession in 1818 under the expelled sultan of Johore (on Malaya) Sultan Abdul Rahman Muadzam Syah ibni al-Marhum Sultan Mahmud

On Java

Sultanate of Banten

Sultanate of Cirebon – the rulers in three of the four palaces (kraton), from which divided Cirebon was ruled: Kraton Kasepuhan, Kraton Kanoman and Kraton Kacirebonan (only in Kraton Kaprabonan was the ruler's title Panembahan)