Sultan is a title of nobility common in countries with an Islamic majority. The original meaning goes back to the verbal Arabic noun sultah, which meant "power" or "power". With the spread of the Arab conquest over large territories, the word gradually turned from an optional epithet into an official title, which emphasized the special position of the ruler and his lack of accountability to any of the earthly rulers, except for the caliph.
Meaning of the word "sultan"
During the almost thousand-year history of the existence of the title, a complex semantic field has formed around it, including many meanings associated both with historical conditions and with the peculiarities of the grammar of the languages into which it penetrated from Arabic.
Advancing along with the Arab troops, the title gained 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 Sultan did not claim power in the entire Caliphate, but in the lands subordinate to them they enjoyed full power and quite often abused it, thereby incurring the people's wrath.
Regions,subject to the sultan are called sultanates and are inherited by the descendants of the ruler.
Title Distribution Regions
In all countries where the term has taken root, sultan is a hereditary title for a ruler whose power is generally not limited by constitutions 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 bore the corresponding titles. However, by the middle of the twentieth century, when the monarchies and colonial powers began to fail, the number of sultanates was significantly reduced, but their former rulers, having lost power, continue to enjoy the respect of their compatriots to this day.
To this day, the sultans of Brunei and Oman have retained full power, while the rulers of the seven subjects of the Malaysian Federation bear the title of sultans, but do not have full power in a single state.
Women's titles
Despite the fact that originally the sultan was a male title, it has undergone significant changes, and in countries such as the Ottoman Empire, it began to be applied to women. First of all, the title "sultana" was worn by the wives and mothers of the rulers of the empire. It is worth noting here that in Turkish there is no difference between masculine and feminine for this word, and the wrong impression may be created about the role of women in the politics of the Sultanate.
A female sultan is, first of all, a relative of a true ruler, who does not have real power, but is capable ofinfluence the situation in the country only through palace intrigues and conspiracies.
