Amir al-Mu'minin

[1] In later centuries, it was also adopted by regional rulers, especially in the western parts of the Muslim world, who used the caliphal rank to emphasize their independent authority and legitimacy, rather than any ecumenical claim.

[6] At the same time, the title has retained a connotation of command in the jihād (Arabic: جِهَاد, "holy war") and has been used thus throughout history, without necessarily implying a claim to the caliphate.

[1][7] It was used in this sense by the early Ottoman sultans—who notably rarely used the caliphal title after they took it from the Abbasids in 1517—as well as various West African Muslim warlords until the modern period.

[citation needed] When Hussein bin Ali was buried in the compound of the Al-Aqsa Mosque as a caliph in 1931, the following inscription was written on the window above his tomb: Arabic: هَذَا قَبْرُ أَمِيرِ ٱلْمُؤْمِنِينَ ٱلْحُسَيْن بْنُ عَلِي, romanized: Haḏa qabru ʾamīri ʾal-mūˈminīna ʾal-Ḥusayn bnu ʿAlī, which translates to "This is the tomb of the Commander of the Faithful, Hussein bin Ali.

[18] Abu Umar al-Baghdadi was conferred the title after his appointment in October 2006 by the Mujahideen Shura Council as the first Emir of the newly declared Islamic State of Iraq.

The Isma'ili Fatimid caliphs used the title as part of their titulature,[1] and in the Nizari branch of Isma'ilism, the ʾAmīr al-Muʾminīn is always the current Imam of the Time.

[23] A similar (but not the same) title[clarification needed] was afforded to the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth's monarch as the Grand Duke of Lithuania by the Lipka Tatars, who used to speak a Turkic language.

Vatad was viewed as a variation on the name Vytautas in Lithuanian or Władysław in Polish, which was known in the diplomatic notes between the Golden Horde and the countries of Poland (Lechistan) and Lithuania (Lipka) as "Dawood".

In James Joyce's 1939 novel Finnegans Wake (page 34.6), an informer who is spreading nasty rumors about the main character is described as "Ibid, commender of the frightful".

In Margaret Atwood's 1985 dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale leaders of the fictional Republic of Gilead, a militaristic theonomy, are referred to as "Commanders of the Faithful."