Noble title with several historical meanings
Suleiman the Magnificent
, the longest-reigning
sultan of the Ottoman Empire
Sultan
(
;
Arabic
:
?????
sul??n
,
pronounced
[s?l?t??ːn,
sol?t??ːn]
) is a
position
with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic
abstract noun
meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", derived from the
verbal noun
????
sul?ah
, meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it came to be used as the title of certain rulers who claimed almost full sovereignty (i.e., not having dependence on any higher ruler) without claiming the overall
caliphate
, or to refer to a powerful
governor
of a province within the caliphate. The adjectival form of the word is "sultanic",
[1]
and the
state
and territories ruled by a sultan, as well as his office, are referred to as a
sultanate
(
?????
sal?anah
)
.
[2]
[3]
The term is distinct from king (
???
malik
), though both refer to a sovereign ruler. The use of "sultan" is restricted to Muslim countries, where the title carries religious significance,
[4]
[5]
contrasting the more secular
king
, which is used in both Muslim and non-Muslim countries.
Brunei
,
Malaysia
and
Oman
are the only independent countries which retain the title "sultan" for their monarchs. In recent years, the title has been gradually replaced by "king" by contemporary hereditary rulers who wish to emphasize their secular authority under the rule of law. A notable example is
Morocco
, whose monarch changed his title from sultan to king in 1957.
History of the term
[
edit
]
The word derives from the Arabic and Semitic root
sala?a
"to be hard, strong". The noun
sul??n
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
.
[6]
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
am?r
(
????
, 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
.
[7]
Towards the late 10th century, the term "sultan" begins to be used to denote an individual ruler with practically sovereign authority,
[8]
although the early evolution of the term is complicated and difficult to establish.
[6]
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.
[8]
[6]
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
.
[6]
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.
[9]
[8]
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
.
[6]
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.
[9]
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.
[6]
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.
[6]
The position of sultan and caliph began to blend together in the 16th century when the
Ottoman Empire
conquered the Mamluk Empire and became the indisputable leading Sunni Muslim power across most of the
Middle East
,
North Africa
, and
Eastern Europe
. The 16th-century Ottoman scholar and jurist,
Ebussuud Mehmet Efendi
, recognized the
Ottoman sultan
(
Suleiman the Magnificent
at the time) as the caliph and universal leader of all Muslims.
[9]
This conflation of sultan and caliph became more clearly emphasized in the 19th century during the Ottoman Empire's territorial decline, when Ottoman authorities sought to cast the sultan as the leader of the entire Muslim community in the face of European (
Christian
)
colonial expansion
.
[10]
As part of this narrative, it was claimed that when Sultan
Selim I
captured Cairo in 1517, the last descendant of the Abbasids in Cairo formally passed on the position of caliph to him.
[10]
This combination thus elevated the sultan's religious or spiritual authority, in addition to his formal political authority.
[9]
[10]
During this later period, the title of sultan was still used outside the Ottoman Empire as well, as with the examples of the
Somali aristocrats
,
Malay nobles
and the
sultans of Morocco
(such as the
Alaouite dynasty
founded in the 17th century).
[6]
It was, however, not used as a sovereign title by
Shi'a
Muslim rulers. The
Safavid dynasty
of
Iran
, who controlled the largest Shi'a Muslim state of this era, mainly used the
Persian
title
Shah
, a tradition which continued under subsequent dynasties. The term
sultan
, by contrast, was mainly given to provincial governors within their realm.
[6]
Feminine forms
[
edit
]
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
[
edit
]
Ottoman Sultan
Mehmed IV
attended by a eunuch and two pages.
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
[
edit
]
The
valide sultan
(sultana mother) of the
Ottoman Empire
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 "padi?ah" (emperor) or "hunkar" 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 (?ehzade) carrying the title before their given name, and imperial princesses carrying it after. For example:
?ehzade 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
Hurrem 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".
[11]
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
.
[
citation needed
]
Military rank
[
edit
]
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
.
Former sultans and sultanates
[
edit
]
Sultanates in the Balkans, Anatolia and Central Asia
[
edit
]
Caucasus
[
edit
]
West Asia and North Africa
[
edit
]
Tuman bay II
, last of the Mamluk Sultans.
- in
Jordan
:
- 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
:
- Oman
?
Sultan of Oman
(authentically referred to as
Hami
), on the southern coast of the Arabian peninsula, still an independent sultanate, since 1744 (assumed the formal title of Sultan in 1861)
- in
Algeria
:
Sultanate of Tuggurt
,
Sultans of Tlemcen
- in
Egypt
:
Sultan
Abd al-Hafid of Morocco
.
Horn of Africa
[
edit
]
19th century map of central
Somaliland
showing the territory of Sultan
Nur
of the
Habr Yunis
- Ajuran Sultanate
, in southern Somalia and eastern Ethiopia
- Adal Sultanate
, in western
Somaliland
, southern
Djibouti
, and the
Somali
,
Harari
and
Afar
regions of
Ethiopia
- Isaaq Sultanate
, in Somaliland and the
Somali region
of Ethiopia
- Habr Yunis Sultanate
, in Somaliland and
Somali region
of Ethiopia
- Majeerteen Sultanate
(Migiurtinia), in northern Somalia
- Sultanate of the Geledi
, in southern Somalia
- Sultanate of Aussa
, in northeastern Ethiopia
- Sultanate of Harar
, in eastern Ethiopia
- Jarso Sultanate
- Sultanate of Hobyo
, in central Somalia
- Sultanate of Ifat
, in Somaliland, Djibouti and eastern Ethiopia
- Sultanate of Mogadishu
, in south-central Somalia
- Sultanate of Showa
, in central Ethiopia
- Bimaal Sultanate
, in south eastern Somalia centred in
Merka
Southeast Africa and Indian Ocean
[
edit
]
Maliki
[
edit
]
Apparently derived from the Arabic
malik
, this was the alternative native style of the sultans of the
Kilwa Sultanate
in
Tanganyika
(presently the continental part of Tanzania).
Swahili Coast
[
edit
]
The eighth
Sultan
of
Zanzibar
,
Ali bin Hamud
. Photograph taken between 1902 and 1911.
- Sultanate of Zanzibar
: two incumbents (from the Omani dynasty) since the de facto separation from Oman in 1806, the last assumed the title Sultan in 1861 at the formal separation under British auspices;
[
citation needed
]
since 1964 union with Tanganyika (part of
Tanzania
)
Mfalume
is the
(Ki)
Swahili
title of various native Muslim rulers, generally rendered in Arabic and in western languages as Sultan:
Sultani
[
edit
]
This was the native ruler's title in the Tanzanian state of Uhehe.
West and Central Africa
[
edit
]
- 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 December 12, 1897
- Rafai
c.
1875
Sultanate, April 8, 1892, under Congo Free State protectorate, March 31, 1909, under French protectorate; 1939 Sultanate suppressed
- Zemio
c.
1872
established; December 11, 1894, under Congo Free State protectorate, April 12, 1909, under French protectorate; 1923 Sultanate suppressed
- in
Chad
:
- in
Niger
:
Arabic
alternative title of the following autochthonous rulers:
- in
Nigeria
most monarchies previously had native titles, but when most in the north converted to Islam, Muslim titles were adopted, such as
emir
and sometimes
sultan
.
South Asia
[
edit
]
Southeast and East Asia
[
edit
]
Hamengkubuwono X
, the incumbent Sultan of Yogyakarta
Pakubuwono XII
, last undisputed Susuhunan of Surakarta
Sultan Saifuddin of
Tidore
Mohammed Mahakuttah Abdullah Kiram
, last recognised Sultan of Sulu
In
Indonesia
(formerly in the
Dutch East Indies
):
In
Malaysia
:
In
Brunei
:
In
China
:
- Dali, Yunnan
, capital of the short-lived
Panthay Rebellion
- Furthermore, the
Qa´id Jami al-Muslimin
(Leader of the Community of Muslims) of
Pingnan Guo
("Pacified South State", a major Islamic rebellious polity in western Yunnan province) is usually referred to in foreign sources as Sultan.
- Ili Sultanate
[
zh
]
In the
Philippines
:
In
Thailand
:
Current sultans
[
edit
]
Sultans of sovereign states
Sultans in Federal Monarchies
Sultan
Ibrahim Ismail
, Sultan and Yang di-Pertuan of
Malaysian State of Johor, The Abode of Dignity
and its occupied territories
Sultan
Sallehuddin
, Sultan and Yang-di Pertuan of
Malaysian State of Kedah, the Abode of Safety
Sultan Muhammad V
, Al-Sultan and Yang di-Pertuan of
Malaysian State of Kelantan, the Abode of Bliss
and its dependencies
Al-Sultan
Abdullah Ri'ayatuddin
, Sultan and Ruler of
Malaysian State of Pahang, the Abode of Tranquility
Sultan
Nazrin Shah
, Sultan, Yang di-Pertuan and the Ruler of
Malaysian State of Perak, the Abode of Grace
and its dependencies
Sultan
Sharafuddin Idris Shah
, Sultan and Yang di-Pertuan of
Malaysian State of Selangor, the Abode of Sincerity
Sultan
Mizan Zainal Abidin
, Sultan and Yang di-Pertuan of
Malaysian State of Terengganu, the Abode of Faith
Sultan with power within Republic
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to
Sultans
.
- ^
"sultan"
.
Dictionary.com
.
Archived
from the original on 2023-02-08
. Retrieved
2023-02-08
.
- ^
"Sultanate"
.
Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary
.
Archived
from the original on 2022-06-22
. Retrieved
2022-06-22
.
- ^
"Sultanate"
.
Britannica Dictionary
.
Archived
from the original on 2022-06-22
. Retrieved
2022-06-22
.
- ^
Montgomery, James Edward (2004).
?Abbasid Studies: Occasional Papers of the School of ?Abbasid Studies, Cambridge, 6?10 July 2002
. Peeters Publishers. p. 83.
ISBN
978-90-429-1433-9
.
Archived
from the original on 27 January 2024
. Retrieved
16 January
2018
.
- ^
Riad Aziz Kassis (1999).
The Book of Proverbs and Arabic Proverbial Works
. Brill. p. 65.
ISBN
90-04-11305-3
.
Archived
from the original on 2024-01-27
. Retrieved
2018-01-16
.
- ^
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Kramers, J.H.; Bosworth, C.E.; Schumann, O.; Kane, Ousmane (2012). "Sul??n". In Bearman, P.; Bianquis, Th.; Bosworth, C.E.; van Donzel, E.; Heinrichs, W.P. (eds.).
Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition
. Brill.
- ^
Duri, A.A. (2012). "Am?r". In Bearman, P.; Bianquis, Th.; Bosworth, C.E.; van Donzel, E.; Heinrichs, W.P. (eds.).
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ISBN
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.
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"B?NA"
.
Encyclopaedia Iranica
.
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