I'm a tad confused..

[Kiurai]

So I may just be overthink this but every ruler is given a title Seeedseer, Admiral, Exarch, etc. Nanamo is given the title of Sultana which is a Muslim sovereign if I'm not mistaken and as I know, our real world religions don't exist in XIV wouldn't that not make sense? I mean yeah game logic but eh. Just a small detail that happened to ping in my brain, thoughts?

[kidalutz]

Sultan or Sultan is not in fact necessarily a muslim ruler that just happens to be the most widespread religion in the area it originates in.

[dustbunny]

While a sultan(a) is a Muslim sovereign, there is no secular head of government in a sultanate, so there’s not really an alternative non-religious title. Separation of church and state became a widespread practice relatively recently, so most of the exotic, cool-sounding titles that the writers have to choose from most likely had religious connotations. The most well known use of the Exarch title is by the Eastern Orthodox Church. For that matter, the monarch of the U.K. is technically the head of the Church of England. It’s just a word that sounds interesting but not made-up, and has the middle eastern aesthetic that they wanted to use for Ul’dah. Also Ishgard uses all the catholic titles. SE has always repurposed cool sounding words into whatever they want them to be, building on their own meta use of these words throughout their games.

[Lium]

Actually, I think emir is the name of a Muslim ruler. Off the top of my head.

[dustbunny]

Actually, I think emir is the name of a Muslim ruler. Off the top of my head.

Emir(a) is another title for a Muslim sovereign, yes. I’m not sure how the usage of sultan and emir differs, or if they’re interchangeable.

[MerleSirlos]

well, Ishgard was ruled by a Pope.

By the way, while checking for the proper definition of Sultan in wikipedia, they had the following ranking on the side:
Emperor = Caliph / Shahanshah / Padishah / Chakravarti / Chhatrapati / Samrat / Khagan
High King = Sultan / Maharaja
King = Emir / Shah / Raja / Khan
and more for lower ranks too.

[YianKutku]

well, Ishgard was ruled by a Pope.

Archbishop.

[Yuriane]

Put simply regardless of the origins of the term Sultan/Sultana/Sultanate, desert kingdoms in pop culture are most often sultanates so Ul'dah just took off from that.