Sultan's research focuses on a range of issues at the intersection of religion, politics, and authoritarianism and their impact on marginalised and under-researched groups.

Her published work offers a methodological and theoretical critique of studies of religion and politics, and addresses a range of issues such as the blind spots of approaches to populism, polarisation, political party moderation, the relevance of western-originated theories of religion to other contexts, the subversive strategies of women theologians to challenge gendered spaces and hierarchies, the impact of top-down urban renewal projects on the urban poor, and the effects of urban governance on transnational religious minorities, and misperceptions about Black Muslims in the US.

Her analyses and commentaries have appeared in numerous journals and edited volumes such as Journal of Democracy, Foreign Policy, Political Research Quarterly, Democratization, Populism, The Oxford Encyclopedia of Politics, and International Journal of Religion: Politics, Sociology, Culture.

Beyond Sacred and Secular: Politics of Religion in Israel and Turkey
Stanford University Press, 2008