The Origin of the Majlis and How It Is Used Today
What the word majlis means, how the traditional sitting room is arranged, and how its idea of gathering shapes living rooms and rugs today.
Majlis is an Arabic word for a place of sitting, the room where people gather, receive guests and talk. We named our studio after it because that is the job we think a rug does best: it gives people a place to come together and makes them want to stay.
A word that means sitting together
The word comes from the Arabic root for sitting, and over time it has stretched to cover many kinds of gathering. In a home it is the reception room. In public life the same word names councils and assemblies in several countries. The common thread is people seated together, facing one another, with time set aside to talk.
That meaning matters to us as interior designers. Most of the rooms we plan for clients come down to the same question of where people will sit, and how easily they can talk once they do.
How a traditional majlis is arranged
A traditional majlis is simple in plan. Seating runs along the walls, often low cushions or long benches, so everyone in the room faces inward. The center is left open. The floor is covered with carpets, which give the room its color and warmth, and guests are offered coffee and something to eat as they settle in.
The arrangement does a few useful things at once. Nobody sits with their back to anyone else. The host can see every guest. And the carpet makes the whole room feel like a single shared space, with no hierarchy of good seats and poor ones.
What carries into a modern living room
Few of our clients want cushions along every wall, but the principles travel well. Seats that face each other, close enough for an easy conversation, make a living room work. As a rule of thumb, keep the main seats within about 8 to 10 feet of one another so nobody has to raise their voice.
The open center carries over too. A low coffee table, or no table at all, keeps sightlines clear across the group. And the floor still ties it together. A rug large enough for every seat to rest on it, with around 18 inches of bare floor showing at the walls, turns a set of furniture into one gathering place. Our sofa and rug pairing guide covers the proportions in more detail.
Why the rug sits at the center of the idea
In a majlis the carpet is the one element every guest shares. It marks the edge of the gathering, softens the sound of a room full of voices, and is comfortable enough to sit on directly. Those are the same three things we ask of a rug in a contemporary room.
Color plays a part in the welcome. Warm earth tones, such as Cashmere, Almond or Saddle from our Intense collection, make a room feel settled and hospitable. Deeper colors like Oud or Ruby suit a room used mostly in the evening, under lamplight. A broad border, as in our Thick collection, echoes the old arrangement of seating around an open middle: a calm center framed by a second color.
How we carry the name today
We are interior designers first. Mazen Eshak and Vincent Dale founded MAJLIS in New York to make rugs for the rooms we were designing, sized and colored for the way people actually gather in them. Every rug is designed and authenticated in New York and hand-loomed in India by skilled craftspeople, in New Zealand wool or ECONYL regenerated nylon.
If you are planning a room around conversation, start with the seating plan and size the rug to it. You can design one to your exact dimensions in MAJLIS Studio, or order color samples to see the palette at home first.
