Dina Al-Sabah family; she is close lineage because her grandfather was the son of Salim Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah, ruler of Kuwait from 1917 to 1921. The Al-Sabahs have ruled Kuwait for over more than two centuries. Al-Sabah was raised in Egypt, Morocco, Italy and the United Kingdom, so she was exposed to many different cultures at a young age. A natural athlete, she started horseback riding at the age of five. She continued her active lifestyle throughout her high school years, competing in equestrian shows and participating in track, volleyball and basketball at the American School of Tangier in Morocco. Al-Sabah is fluent
Rise of the Ottoman Empire while others remained Christian. Of great symbolic importance for Ottoman centralization was the practice whereby Ottoman rulers would customarily stand upon hearing the sound of martial music, indicating their willingness to participate in "gaza". Shortly after the Conquest of Constantinople in 1453, Mehmed II discontinued this practice, indicating that the Ottoman ruler was no longer a simple frontier warrior, but the sovereign of an empire. The empire's capital was shifted from Edirne, the city symbolically connected with the frontier warrior ethos of "gaza", to Constantinople, a city with deeply imperial connotations due to its long history as the capital of