Bolkiah Mu'izzadin Waddaulah, Sir Hassanal, 1946–, sultan of Brunei (1967–). He succeeded to the throne after the abdication of his father, Sultan Sir Omar Ali Saifuddin. Known as a playboy, he nonetheless worked to create a political bureaucracy prior to Brunei's independence from Great Britain in 1984, and subsequently has served as prime minister and minister of finance (1984–) and foreign minister (2015–) of Brunei. Vastly wealthy from Brunei's oil and gas production, he has become a defender of conservative Islam, gradually establishing sharia as the basis for the sultanate's laws.
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