Sultans contd.

Later chroniclers of the Maldives do not recognise these reigns. Instead the Muslim regents of the Christian kings are listed as sultans. However the names and styles of these vice-regal rulers betray the fact that in their own time they were not regarded as sovereigns.

Where a king’ sultan was "crowned" or accorded a gong ceremony, they were given a regnal name which were in the ancient Maldive language. This was their official names. This name was followed by the term " Maha Radhun (king) or Maha Rehendhi (reigning queen). The personal name usually preceded the regnal name in the royal style.

Some king/sultans and queen/sultanas did not have a "coronation" ceremony or gong ceremony. There were several complex reasons for this in some cases. In other cases it was just due to incidental circumstances. Where a sovereign was not "crowned" he or she were called Keerithi Maha Radhun (king) or Keerithi Maha Rehendhi (queen).

Kings and queens of the Maldives, upon accession were given a dynastic name, following the gong ceremony. These names were in the classical Divehi language, which is not intelligible any more. The name was prefixed with Siri, an honorific prefix and suffixed with either maha radun (great king) or maha rehendi (great queen). So the official name of a king may be Siri Suddasuvara Maha Radun. Hear Suddasuvara is the name of the king. Until the gong ceremony takes place, the monarch’s birth name is used with the suffix Keerithi Maha Radun (the Exalted Great King) or Keerithi Maha Rehendi. In some case it may take years between the accession and the gong ceremony, but on average this took place within the year. Some reigns finished without the gong ceremony.

With the advent of Islam, the title of Sultan (in Arabic, this roughly translates as sovereign) was introduced, in conjunction with and arguably subordinate to, the Divehi language title of radun or rasge meaning king or rehendi meaning queen. The title of Sultan was abolished in favour of only the title King (al-melik in Arabic and radun in Divehi) in 1965 three years before the monarchy itself was abolished. So from 1153 until 1965 (with the exception of a period during the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries), the Maldive monarchs were King-Sultans (or Queen-Sultanas). Prior to 1153 and from 1965 to 1968 they were Kings or Queens. Between 1965 and 1968, the Arabic title of melik (king) was used in conjunction with the title Keerithi Maha Radun. The official title of the last Maldive king between those years was "Jelalet-el-melik Mohamed Farid el-awwal Keerithi Maha Radun, which translates as "His Majesty King Mohamed Farid the First the Exalted Great King".

In common usage the king-sultan was referred to as radun. Since the 16th century, the word "bandaarain" was used occasionally and interchangeably with the word radun. In the Maldive royal tradition, there had always been a distinction between The Crown (raskan) and the State (bandaara). Until 1932 these two roles converged in the person of the king-sultan (or queen-sultana). Surviving royal deeds and other documents bear testament to this distinction. When the Utheem kateeb Mohamed Thakurufan seized control of Male from the Christian King

Manoel's (former Hassan IX's) regent Andiri Andirin, a need arose to more clearly demarcate the roles of radun and bandaarain. Under the terms of the truce that was subsequently agreed between the Utheem rebels and the legitimate king, Mohamed Thakurufan and his successors were forced to recognise the sovereignty of King Manoel and his successors over the Maldives. Although later historians and officialdom bestowed the titles of king and sultan on Mohamed
Thakurufan, all surviving documents and coinage from that time refer to him as al-vazir (the minister). His continued use of the rank of Thakurufan suggests that he never thought of himself as king or sultan, as indeed he was legally not entitled to do so. Thakurufan was a rather low-ranking appellation which was incongruent with the rank of royalty. Two of the Thakurufan's immediate successors bore titles (kalaafaanu and faamuladeyri kilege respectively) which suggest that they were never elevated to the rank of king-sultan in keeping with the terms of the truce with the Christian king and his successors, who were resident in Goa and continued to be referred to in succession as "kings of the Maldives". Mohamed Thakurufan (Ghazi Bandaarain or Utheem Bandaarain) was one of the first to be called bandaarain. This may have been a cunning ploy devised by the Thakurufan himself to circumvent the terms of the truce. By adopting that title based on at least one historical precedent, the Maldivians would have been led to regard him as a sort of king albeit not the legitimate one. He was, after all, the de facto head of State. Buraara Koi referred to King Dammaru Bavana Sultan Mohamed (Mohamed the Black) as Kalu Mohamed Bandaarain. Tradition has it that his wife Burecca was responsible for restoring the throne for him by assassinating her brother King Ananda Sultan Ali. Burrecca was beleived to have shared the throne with her husband for a time, and this may have been the reason why her husband bore the title of bandaarain for at least a time- again a case where the roles of The Crown (raskan) and the State (bandaara) had been devolved. For more details on the subject see the page on the Myth of Portuguese Rule

It must be noted that there was, another term for "head of State", which was mainly used during the gong ceremony that confirmed the accession of a king or queen. That term was "raadafathi". I have extracted the following passage from the section on the Gong Ceremonies in my, as yet, unpublished book Kingdom of Isles. "....While the Sultan stood before the throne, the Prime Minister would ask the kateebs of the islands of Kelaa in Thiladummathi Atoll, Isdu in Haddummati Atoll and Hithadu in Addu Atoll if they had any objection to the prince before them being proclaimed Head of State. These three kateebs from islands in the north, middle and the south of the realm represented the entire population of the kingdom. The actual question was worded in ancient Maldivian, barely intelligible to the uninitiated and was "Mi kimerun raadafathi-kamu reyda kuravvai mudifiloddevvumah thibaa meehun ruhettha?.............

The second female sovereign in Islamic times also bore the title of raadafathi, for reasons I do not yet know.