Sultana (title) Sultana (title) Sultana or sultanah (; ") is a female royal title, and a feminine form of the word sultan. This term has been officially used for female monarchs in some Islamic states, and historically it was also used for sultan's consorts. Nevertheless, westerners have also used the title to refer to Muslim women monarchs and sultan's women relatives who do not hold this title officially. The term sultana is a feminine form of the word sultan (), an Arabic abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", derived from the verbal noun ", meaning "authority" or "power". Later, sultan came to
Female labor force in the Muslim world and economic opportunities are limited. Possible explanations for this phenomenon could the same determinants of high self-employment among females and low rates of female employers: low levels of economic development, gendered employment social norms, or capital-intensive industry. This last explanation may be particularly salient in the oil-rich Muslim nations because petroleum exports are capital-intensive and require very high skilled labor which most Muslim women are incapable of providing given low levels of education. The Great Recession has increased unemployment across the board in many Muslim nations and female workers were not left unaffected. According to the World Bank, in 2009,