Sultanate Middle Eastern titles tied to Berber/Arab culture instead of Muslim religion

[Strategos' Risk]

This association based on culture of the leader has led to a situation where there's a "Sultanate of Jerusalem" Bedouin crusader state that successfully won the Holy Land in the name of Christ and church. Meanwhile, in reformed Germanic pagan Britannia, the new emperor was raised in one of the vikings' colonies in North Africa, so he ended up Berber, and now all of the titles are Sultan this instead of King and Emir instead of Jarl.

Were there even non-Muslim sultanates/emirates/wilayahs, etc.? Well, there certainly were Armenian wilayah in the Ottoman Empire, but the Ottomans were Muslim, so that doesn't count. I don't think the Mozrabs or any Christian Arab groups ever named their polities "sultanates."

 

[Greybeard0815]

It's a localization thing. All Arab cultures use the same names for titles.

kingdom_of_arabic;Sultanate of;Sultanat de;Sultanat von;;Sultanato de;;;;;;;;;x

barony_arabic;Wilayah;Wilaya;Wilayah;;Vilayato;;;;;;;;;x;
county_arabic;Sheikhdom;Cheikat;Scheichtum;;Dominio del Jeque;;;;;;;;;x;
duchy_arabic;Emirate;Émirat;Emirat;;Emirato;;;;;;;;;x;
kingdom_arabic;Sultanate;Sultanat;Sultanat;;Sultanato;;;;;;;;;x;

This is how it's declared throughout the localization files (which are a mess). You could try and change arabic to muslim in the files, but then you'll have Persian Sultans instead of a Shah's.

 

[Strategos' Risk]

I know it's introducing another layer of complexity, but it seem like it'd be better to localize on culture + religion, rather than one or the other.

 

[Clophiroth]

Wilayah is certainly religion-neutral: it just mean "Governor". Emir/Amir means commander, and was used for military commanders which later started to rule some regions, being the exact same equivalent of the latin word "Dux", which later became "Duke". Sultan was just used in Islamic era, yeah, but it also has no relation at all to religion: it means "the powerful" or "he who has power", and was originally used to describe Turkic chieftains and warlords, if I remember correctly.

Christian mozarabs never ruled anything, so, it is unknown what they would have called a kingdom of their own, but I guess they would have used the same arabic words that any other muslim ruler in Iberia, although I guess no one would claim to be a Caliph XD

 

[Shah]

All of the situations make perfect sense, the titles have nothing to do with religion but with language and culture.

The viking emperor is not viking but berber and thus presumebly would speak and refer to his titles in his own language.

 

[Thure]

Emir isn't restricted to religion. Even the Normans in South Italy used the title Emir for commanders. That's where the term 'Admiral' is coming from

Edit: Roger of Siciliy even called himself 'Sultan of Sicily' in Arabic documents. So a Christian ruler used Sultan too in Arabic.

 

[Sergeant Flutter]

I understand your points. You could probably add in a few features somewhat easily by modding.

 

[Strategos' Risk]

Okay, given the historical context, this seems acceptable to me now. I suppose in the modern day we just hear about al-Qaeda using emir for regional commanders so I assumed it was a specific throwback to medieval Islam. Didn't know that non-Muslims also used those terms as well.