Sultans
sultan" was originally used to denote moral or spiritual authority, but it later came to denote political or governmental power and from the 11th century was used as a title by Muslim sovereigns.
Sultans Encyclopedia Articles
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Agung
Agung was the third sultan of the Mataram dynasty of central Java who brought his domain to its greatest territorial and military power. In the early years of Sultan Agung’s reign, he consolidated the...
Muḥammad ibn Tughluq
Muḥammad ibn Tughluq was the second sultan of the Tughluq dynasty (reigned 1325–51), who briefly extended the rule of the Delhi sultanate of northern India over most of the subcontinent. As a result of...
Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Muʿizzaddin Waddaulah
Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Muʿizzaddin Waddaulah is the 29th sultan of Brunei. Hassanal Bolkiah was the eldest son of Sultan Sir Haji Omar Ali Saifuddin. He was educated privately and later attended the Victoria...
Hassan I
Hassan I was the sultan of Morocco (1873–94), whose policy of internal reforms brought his country a degree of stability previously unknown and who succeeded in preserving the independence of that North...
Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī
Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī was a Marīnid sultan of Morocco (reigned 1331–51) who increased the territories of his dynasty and, for a brief time, created a united North African empire. In 1331 Abū al-Ḥasan succeeded...
Iltutmish
Iltutmish was the third and greatest Delhi sultan of the so-called Slave dynasty. Iltutmish was sold into slavery but married the daughter of his master, Quṭb al-Dīn Aibak, whom he succeeded in 1211. He...
Ibrāhīm Lodī
Ibrāhīm Lodī was the last Afghan sultan of Delhi of the Lodī dynasty. He was a suspicious tyrant who increasingly alienated his nobles during his reign. The son of Sikandar, Ibrāhīm succeeded to the throne...
Qalāʾūn
Qalāʾūn was a Mamlūk sultan of Egypt (1279–90), the founder of a dynasty that ruled that country for a century. In the 1250s Qalāʾūn was an early and devoted supporter of the Mamlūk commander Baybars,...
Ḥusayn Shah ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn
Ḥusayn Shah ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn was the founder of the Ḥusayn Shāhī dynasty of Bengal. He is often regarded as the most illustrious ruler (1493–1519) of late medieval Bengal. The details of ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn’s early...
al-Malik al-Kāmil
Al-Malik al-Kāmil was a sultan (from 1218) of the Ayyūbid line, who ruled Egypt, Palestine, and Syria during the Fifth and Sixth crusades. On his accession to the sultanate, al-Kāmil engaged the armies...
Abulfatah Agung
Abulfatah Agung was the ruler of the powerful Javanese sultanate of Bantam from 1651 to 1683. Agung encouraged English and French trade but successfully opposed Dutch expansion into the area in the early...
Qaboos bin Said
Qaboos bin Said was the sultan of Oman (1970–2020). Qaboos, a member of Oman’s Āl Bū Saʿīd dynasty, was educated at Bury Saint Edmunds, Suffolk, England, and at Sandhurst, the Royal Military Academy, in...
Baybars I
Baybars I was the most eminent of the Mamlūk sultans of Egypt and Syria, which he ruled from 1260 to 1277. He is noted both for his military campaigns against Mongols and crusaders and for his internal...
Abu Bakar
Abu Bakar was the sultan of the Malay state of Johore (now part of Malaysia) from 1885 to 1895. He maintained independence from Britain and stimulated economic development in Johore at a time when most...
Iskandar Muda
Iskandar Muda was the sultan of Aceh in northern Sumatra under whom the region achieved its greatest territorial expansion and an international reputation as a centre of trade and of Islamic learning....
Murad I
Murad I was an Ottoman sultan who ruled from 1360 to 1389. Murad’s reign witnessed rapid Ottoman expansion in Anatolia and the Balkans and the emergence of new forms of government and administration to...
sultan
Sultan, originally, according to the Qurʾān, moral or spiritual authority; the term later came to denote political or governmental power and from the 11th century was used as a title by Muslim sovereigns....
Saladin
Saladin was a Muslim sultan of Egypt, Syria, Yemen, and Palestine, founder of the Ayyūbid dynasty, and the most famous of Muslim heroes. In wars against the Christian Crusaders, he achieved great success...
Malik-Shāh
Malik-Shāh was the third and most famous of the Seljuq sultans. Malik-Shāh succeeded his father, Alp-Arslan, in 1072 under the tutelage of the great vizier Niẓām al-Mulk, who was the real manager of the...
Sanjar
Sanjar was a Seljuq prince of Khorāsān from c. 1096 to 1157, whose fame almost eclipses that of the “Great Seljuqs” because of the length of his reign, his power and victories in its first half, his disasters...
Barghash
Barghash was the sultan of Zanzibar (1870–88), a shrewd and ambitious ruler, who, for most of his reign, looked to Britain for protection and assistance but eventually saw his domains divided between Germany...
Aybak
Aybak was the first Mamlūk sultan of Egypt (1250–57) in the Turkish, or Baḥrī, line. Upon the death of al-Ṣaliḥ, the last great sultan of the Ayyūbid dynasty, his son succeeded him but offended his father’s...
Mahmud Muzaffar Shah
Mahmud Muzaffar Shah was the last sultan of Riau (Riouw) and Lingga (archipelagoes south of Singapore), whose deposition cleared the way for Dutch colonial control. Mahmud was crowned sultan in 1834, and,...
Alp-Arslan
Alp-Arslan was the second sultan of the Seljuq Turks (1063–72), who inherited the Seljuq territories of Khorāsān and western Iran and went on to conquer Georgia, Armenia, and much of Asia Minor (won from...
Mahmud Shah
Mahmud Shah was the sultan of Malacca (now Melaka) from 1488 until the capture of the city by the Portuguese in 1511, after which he founded the kingdom of Johor (Johore). At the time of Mahmud Shah’s...
Abd al-Aziz
Abd al-Aziz was the sultan of Morocco from 1894 to 1908, whose reign was marked by an unsuccessful attempt to introduce European administrative methods in an atmosphere of increasing foreign influence....
Tippu Sultan
Tippu Sultan was the sultan of Mysore, who won fame in the wars of the late 18th century in southern India. Tippu was instructed in military tactics by French officers in the employ of his father, Hyder...
al-Ashraf Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn Khalīl
Al-Ashraf Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn Khalīl was a Mamlūk sultan of Egypt who completed his father Qalāʾūn’s campaign to drive the Franks from Syria. He captured Acre (now ʿAkko, Israel) in the spring of 1291, and the...
Orhan
Orhan was the second ruler of the Ottoman dynasty, which had been founded by his father, Osman I. Orhan’s reign (1324–60) marked the beginning of Ottoman expansion into the Balkans. Under Orhan’s leadership,...
Sultan Idris ibn Raja Iskandar
Sultan Idris ibn Raja Iskandar was the sultan of Perak, from 1887 to 1916. Idris succeeded to the throne of Perak only 13 years after the British had declared a protectorate over the state. He reigned...
Alauddin
Alauddin was the sultan of the Malay kingdom of Johor (Johore) from 1528. He is sometimes considered the cofounder of the kingdom with his father, Mahmud Shah, the last sultan of Melaka (Malacca), who...