Noruler took more liberties with his religion than Akbar, the greatest of the Mughals, the Muslim dynasty that dominated India between the early 16th and 18th centuries.
Ruling families in the Gulf have allowed their people to vote, most recently for town councils in Saudi Arabia, but noruler has conceded tangible powers to his people.
The Iran of her childhood is gone but the one of her memories is a place no relative or ruler can destroy: a land of sweet shops, snowy mountains and heroes and heroines from a glorious if mythical past.
There have been no details released about the meeting between King Abdullah, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Kuwaiti ruler Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad and Syria's Bashar al-Assad.