In the Persian Gulf region, Arab leaders have for millennia presided over a unique social tradition known as the majlis, derived from the Arabic term for “sitting room.” The loosely defined gatherings, which customarily take place in a home, have long been recognized as a primary meeting point where community members can go to resolve issues, ask for favors or simply cultivate relationships, among other things.

In South Florida, close to the warm and coursing waters of the Gulf Stream, President-elect Donald Trump is now enacting what experts interpret as his own version of the majlis, as he continues to receive a procession of foreign leaders, business executives, media personalities, Cabinet picks and other visitors at his palatial Mar-a-Lago residence — where he has held court in the weeks before his inauguration next month.

During his first term, Trump was frequently — and unfavorably — likened to a Roman emperor, thanks in large part to his autocratic instincts and taste for excess. His short-lived political exile in Palm Beach, after he reluctantly left the White House nearly four years ago, drew comparisons to the Avignon Papacy, which famously broke from Rome in the 1300s amid a religious schism in the Catholic Church.

But the Middle Eastern majlis may be a more fitting analogy to explain Trump’s transition as he prepares for his return to Washington, underscoring how the president-elect has functioned like a kind of sheikh — blending patronage with personal connections in a domestic setting to achieve his goals, even before he assumes office.

Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, an expert on the Gulf states and a Middle East fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, said the majlis is “very relevant to understanding how Trump appears to be operating, and it adds to perceptions — held by many observers in and analysts of the Gulf States as well — that the Trump inner circle at Mar-a-Lago more closely resembles a ‘royal court’ than anything else.”

“The ‘majlis’ tradition of providing access to the ruling circle may not be uppermost in Trump’s thought process,” he told Jewish Insider, “but it’s likely something he, and members of his family, have encountered during their trips to the region.”

Trump, for his part, appears to be reveling in the newfound attention as he draws a steady stream of high-profile guests to his home, where he reportedly wields an iPad he uses to play his favorite songs on the patio.

“EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE MY FRIEND!!!” Trump wrote in a gleeful post to Truth Social on Thursday, the morning after his dinner with Jeff Bezos, the Amazon owner, who is the latest among a growing number of billionaire business leaders who have made the pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago following the election, in an effort to curry favor with the next president.

From his perch in Palm Beach, Trump has also recently met with Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Sundar Pichai of Google, Ted Sarandos of Netflix and Shou Zi Chew of TikTok. The president-elect has taken an audience with Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski of MSNBC, while welcoming Justin Trudeau, the prime minister of Canada, and Javier Milei, the president of Argentina, among others.

In a manner reminiscent of the majlis, the scene at Mar-a-Lago has been animated by the presence of such perma-guests as Elon Musk, who has become one of Trump’s closest advisors during the transition and was recently rewarded with a new role leading a proposed department of government efficiency with Vivek Ramaswamy.

Thomas Lippman, the author of Saudi Arabia on the Edge, suggested that what he described as the “parade of business tycoons and political aspirants to” Trump’s mansion “would be amusingly familiar to anyone who has examined the governance of Saudi Arabia in its formative years a century ago.”

“There was no legislature,” he told JI. “Adapting a practice developed in the desert tribes, the king — and his brothers who governed individual provinces — would receive petitioners at a session known as a majlis, or assembly, who would ask for a favor or a job or a contract. With his unchecked power, the king built the loyalty of the grateful recipients of his largesse.”

Trump notably visited the Saudi capital of Riyadh on his first overseas trip as president in 2017, and he has spoken admiringly of the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, calling him a “visionary” in an interview weeks before the November election. Trump’s inner circle of Middle East advisors is also well acquainted with the social customs of the Gulf states — having developed close ties to the region’s leaders while negotiating the Abraham Accords last term.

Shortly before he was reelected last month, Trump also hosted Arab rulers such as Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, the president of the United Arab Emirates, and Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani of Qatar.

A spokesperson for Trump’s transition team did not respond to a request for comment from JI regarding the majlis tradition.

Even if the parallel is likely incidental, some observers say they believe it is an apt metaphor for Trump’s sui generis approach to politics. The majlis “is a form of consultation with power elites,” Brian Katulis, a senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the Middle East Institute, explained. But it can be used “to co-opt them and get different” corporate sectors “to go on bended knee to get access and favors,” he added. “I’ve said often that Trump ran his White House like a Middle East dictatorship in his first term.”

Hussein Ibish, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute, echoed that assessment. The majlis is “a personal or personalized central space in which supplicants seeking patronage of one form or another can humbly request the favor in question from the individual powerful patron,” he said, while showing “fealty” to “demonstrate their embrace of a patron-client relationship.”

“The big difference,” Ibish emphasized, is that the majlis “is a key feature of many traditional Arab cultures, especially in the Gulf region, whereas this isn’t the way things have typically been done in the U.S. at the national political register.” He suggested that the Mar-a-Lago milieu may more accurately be described as a “mash-up” of the majlis with what he characterized as “the oligarchy model derived from” Russia or Hungary, whose president, the strongman Viktor Orban, met with Trump earlier this month in South Florida. 

Meanwhile, one prominent scholar of the Middle East, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, used a more common comparison while questioning the egalitarian spirit of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago. “Here, the analogy is more ‘Godfather,’ where people show up to kiss the ring or to pay obeisance,” the scholar mused.

Still, the majlis is a fluid concept and can take several different forms, according to Sean Foley, a professor of Middle East and Islamic history at Middle Tennessee State University. It is a “social institution utilized by kings and other royals but is also found in every home, club, business and other institution in the Gulf states,” he told JI in an email. 

Typically segregated by gender, the majlis, which UNESCO has recognized as an intangible cultural heritage, has functioned as a “place where men and women, royals and non-royals, gather to talk about multiple subjects, not just politics,” said Foley, who noted that Saudi artists have also used it as a forum to discuss art and culture.

But for the incoming president, the key word is no doubt “royal,” Elliott Abrams, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and former Iran envoy in Trump’s first term, suggested to JI.

“Mar-a-Lago these days does resemble a modern royal majlis in many ways,” Abrams observed. “There’s a royal family. There is adulation of the ruler. People bring claims, grievances and pleadings, and they seek jobs and favors. There are lots of television sets showing the news. Admission to the majlis is widely sought and prestigious. Outside, it’s hot and sunny.”

“But there are differences too,” Abrams clarified. “Trump’s majlis has lots of women and golf shirts.”