The Sultan is a noble title common in countries with an Islamic majority. The original meaning dates back to the verb Arabic noun sultah, which meant "power" or "power." With the spread of the Arab conquest over large territories, the word from an optional epithet gradually turned into an official title, which emphasized the special position of the ruler and his lack of accountability to any of the earthly rulers except the caliph.
Meaning of the word “Sultan”
Over the nearly thousand-year history of the existence of the title, a complex semantic field has formed around it, including many meanings related both to historical conditions and to the grammar features of the languages into which it penetrated from Arabic.
Moving along with the Arab troops, the title received the widest geographical distribution from the foothills of the North Caucasus to the Arabian deserts and from the Atlantic coast of North Africa to the islands of Indonesia.
Although the rulers who took the title of the Sultan did not claim power in the entire caliphate, they enjoyed the full power on the lands subordinate to them and quite often abused it, thereby incurring popular anger.
Regions subject to the sultan are called sultanates and are inherited by the descendants of the ruler.
Title Regions
In all countries in which this term has taken root, the sultan is the inherited title of ruler, whose power, as a rule, is not limited to the constitution or serious democratic institutions.
At a time when empires were still full of strength, there was a huge amount of land, the rulers of which wore the appropriate titles. However, by the middle of the twentieth century, when the monarchies and colonial powers began to collapse, the number of sultanates was significantly reduced, but their former rulers, having lost power, continue to be respected by their compatriots to this day.
To this day, the sultans of Brunei and Oman have retained all power, while the rulers of the seven constituent entities of the Malaysian Federation have the title of sultans, but do not have all power in a single state.
Women's titles
Despite the fact that the sultan was originally a man’s title, he underwent significant changes, and in countries such as the Ottoman Empire, he began to apply to women. First of all, the title of "Sultana" was worn by the wives and mothers of the rulers of the empire. It is worth noting that in the Turkish language for this word there is no difference between masculine and feminine, and a wrong impression may be created about the role of women in the politics of the Sultanate.
The woman-sultan is primarily a relative of the true ruler, who does not have real power, but is able to influence the situation in the country only through palace intrigues and conspiracies.