Sultan to as a sultanate ( "). The term is distinct from king ( "), despite both referring to a sovereign ruler. The use of "sultan" is restricted to Muslim countries, where the title carries religious significance, contrasting the more secular "king", which is used in both Muslim and non-Muslim countries. A feminine form of "sultan", used by Westerners, is Sultana or Sultanah and this title has been used legally for some (not all) Muslim women monarchs and sultan's mothers and chief consorts. However, Turkish and Ottoman Turkish also uses "sultan" for imperial lady, as Turkish grammar—which is influenced by Persian
Muslim in Arabic is "muslimūn" () or "muslimīn" (), and its feminine equivalent is "muslimāt" (). The Arabic form "muslimun" is the stem IV participle of the triliteral "S-L-M". The ordinary word in English is "Muslim". It is sometimes transliterated as "Moslem", which is an older spelling. The word "Mosalman" (, alternatively "Mussalman") is a common equivalent for "Muslim" used in Central and South Asia. Until at least the mid-1960s, many English-language writers used the term "Mohammedans" or "Mahometans". Although such terms were not necessarily intended to be pejorative, Muslims argue that the terms are offensive because they allegedly imply that