Sultans

Government Type: Constitutional monarchy with a bicameral Parliament consisting of a nonelected upper house and an elected lower house; all Peninsular Malaysian states have hereditary rulers (commonly referred to as sultans) except Melaka and Pulau Pinang (Penang); those two states along with Sabah and Sarawak in East Malaysia have governors appointed by government; powers of state governments are limited by federal constitution ❋ Unknown (2009)

By the mid-10th century, the caliphate imperial structure was replaced by a new style of state based on commanders called sultans (See Overview), who initially gained titles and legitimacy by supporting the then-powerless caliphs. ❋ Unknown (2001)

Though they are still under the nominal rule of their own rajahs -- now known as sultans -- each has a British adviser attached to his court, the ❋ Unknown (1918)

The Turkish tribes have never taken an active share in the conduct of the affairs of society, but they accomplished stupendous enterprises as long as the victories of the sultans were the triumphs of the Mohammedan faith. ❋ Alexis De Tocqueville (1832)

The titles and epithets assumed by the sultans are the most extravagantly absurd that it is possible to imagine. ❋ William Marsden (1795)

The hotel will be a five-minute walk from the Dolmabahce Palace, the former center of the Ottoman Empire and home to six sultans, which is now a national heritage museum. ❋ Unknown (2010)

Nostalgia for the 1453 conquest of Constantinople and other early triumphs was fine - but the excesses of the sultans were the stuff of decay, no model for modern Turkey. ❋ Unknown (2010)

At night, as we had no local "sultans" to torment us, eight more men of sultan ❋ John Hanning Speke (1845)

Nine of these states have hereditary rulers, generally titled "sultans," while the remaining four have appointed governors in counterpart positions.

At the 37th annual Fancy Food Show in San Francisco last week, no less than three different companies debuted brand-new versions of this glorious relic from an age when Istanbul was Constantinople, and sultans paid bounties for every severed Christian head. ❋ Anneli Rufus (2012)

The very name, the aroma of spices, the history of Arab sultans and their harems have all fed into a successful modern tourist industry. ❋ Unknown (2011)

The turkeys and cake were part of a long tradition of food as propaganda and power; of simats from an old Arabic word for a meal or a cloth on which food was served, massive public banquets thrown by rulers, sultans, and caliphs to secure fealty. ❋ Annia Ciezadlo (2011)

The Ottoman sultans then claimed the title of caliph and brandished it for four centuries until Kamal Ataturk, founder of the Turkish Republic, abolished it in 1924. ❋ Harris Zafar (2011)

The sultans and satraps storm Europe with the sword, but with them too arrives the astrolabe, algebra and the glory that was Greece. ❋ Tim Radford (2010)

But for Léry, the violence of the sultans took second place to that of a Christian, Vlad III, the fifteenth-century Romanian prince known as the “Impaler” in his day and as the inspiration of the Dracula story in ours. ❋ Russell Jacoby (2011)

The despotic sultans of the Umayyad and later the Abbasid dynasties found the death sentence on apostasy very useful, for they could simply condemn their critics as heretics and got them executed. ❋ Mustafa Akyol (2011)