Sultán

Sultán is a title used for certain Muslim rulers who held sovereign temporal authority over a state or territory. The word derives from the Arabic sulṭān, meaning “power, authority” or “ruler,” and passed into Persian and Turkish. In a political sense, a sultán was a ruler who exercised military and administrative control; the title did not inherently denote religious leadership, unlike the caliph, though some sultáns claimed religious legitimacy.

Historically, sultáns governed diverse polities across the medieval Islamic world, including the Seljuk Empire, the Delhi Sultanate, the Mamluk and Ottoman realms, and various sultanates in North Africa, the Middle East, and South and Southeast Asia. The relationship between sultán and caliph varied: at times the sultán ruled independently, while in other periods the caliphate provided spiritual authority or legitimacy. In some realms the sultanate represented the highest temporal authority, while in others it coexisted with a caliph.

Today the title endures in a few states. Brunei and Oman are governed by sultáns, continuing long dynastic traditions. In other regions the term remains part of historical discourse, used to describe former polities that claimed sovereign authority. The sultán title, and the related concept of a sultanate, thus denotes a specific form of medieval and early modern Muslim political authority and continues to appear in contemporary references to monarchies in certain countries.