Back in the day, when I was traveling into the Middle East with regularity, we would spend a few weeks going all through the Gulf to see clients and prospects, gathering money for our global private banking business. The Gulf was particularly fertile ground and I very much enjoyed the travel and business discussions. The Saudis, Emirates, Qataris, and Bahrainis were all well schooled in markets and investments, having had more than twenty years of petrodollar experience. As an investment professional building a global private banking business, I was used to dealing with all sorts of investors. Generically, there were two main sorts: those that were entirely focused on whatever business that had created their wealth and those that were all about managing the money that they had somehow been handed. While it is easier to respect those that created their wealth through their hard work and commercial smarts, the investors that made their business the business of managing money were much easier to talk to because they were market-focused professionals. Where we were a necessary annoyance to the business builders, the investment guys loved sharing thoughts with us and welcomed our visits.
As we traveled around the region, the places where we would visit the business builders were at their places of business, but the investment guys didn’t really have those sorts of business headquarters since their jobs were managing money. Some were starting to operate out of family office locations, but most were still working from their homes and palaces. You see, most of these moneyed folk were members of royalty in their countries. In Saudi Arabia there were over 6,000 princes (obviously of a wide range of statures) and through the smaller Gulf Emirates and kingdoms, there was no lack of royalty, all with their own sense of importance and the palaces to go with it. Visits were always an occcasion. One visit we regularly made was to the major prince of Dubai (before Dubai was the super-big deal it is today). Dubai’s transformation from a small fishing and pearling village to a global metropolis is one of the most dramatic urban developments in modern history. It was the Al Maktoum family, led by Sheikh Maktoum bin Butti, that established rule over Dubai and established it as independent sheikhdom. In 1966, oil was discovered offshore though the reserves proved much smaller than nearby Abu Dhabi’s. That caused Dubai to scramble for areas like trade, which it could dominate to keep its standing relative to its immediate neighbors. In 1971 Dubai joined with Abu Dhabi and five other emirates to form the United Arab Emirates. In the early 1990s, when I was running around the region, Sheikh Maktoum bin Rashid became ruler with Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid (the current ruler) becoming the de facto leader while his father enjoyed the fruits of his family’s success.
The Maktoum palace had a very large “majlis”, which is the Arabic word meaning “sitting place” or “council”. The majlis system is an ancient Bedouin tradition adapted to modern governance. It is both a physical space and a social institution. It is a regular, open forum where rulers and sheikhs meet directly with citizens…and visiting guests. The concept is one of open access. Any Emirati citizen can attend the ruler’s majlis, typically held at specific times (often mornings, several times per week). No appointments are necessary for the citizens, they simply walk in, take a seat, wait their turn, and present their case. Sometimes the sheikh holds court in his inner rooms, and sometimes he holds court in the majlis itself, what would otherwise be the waiting reception room. The Process is for the sheikh to take his special place of honor (his throne as it were) and then proceed to receive petitions, requests, complaints, or just respects from his constituency or visitors. The sheikh listens and often makes decisions right on the spot…I guess as a sign of his all-knowing omnipotence. While in today’s world, some of these majlis interactions take place digitally and even through social media, the traditional face-to-face majlis continues much as it took place when I was visiting thirty years ago.
When I would visit, it would start with a brief wait in the courtyard outsides the majlis entrance. Part of the “entertainment” provided for visitors was in the form of the several falconers of the sheikh with their impressive birds of prey on their gloved arms. Falcons are hard pets to ignore. And naturally, part of the drill was to don a leather glove and hold the falcons. When that happened, the falconers, clearly seeking a reaction from their guests, would remove the falcon’s hood such that the bird would immediately make eye contact with its new holder. I have never felt more like lunch that when that bird’s eyes drilled straight through me with the intensity only a major league predator can possess. I suspect this was all part of the majlis warm-up process with invited guests, especially professional westerners like bankers.
Upon entering the majlis sitting room, the scale and uniformity of decor stand out. The room was the size of a ballroom. It was furnished with perhaps sixty identical chairs around its rectangular perimeter, all of gold brocaded French Provincial design. The center of the room had nothing but what must be the largest Persian rug I have ever seen…also threaded with a good deal of gold strands. At one spot, near the far corner of the room, was a dramatically different, more modern chair that looked like something from the Charles Eames collection with his modern mid-century design (post-Bauhaus). This was black leather with a molded wood base and in front of it was a mismatched table. This was the only place in the majlis with a table. On that table rested a box of tissues, a leather caddy with various pens and small office supplies, a small bowl of hard candies, packs of Marlboro and Dunhill cigarettes, a gold lighter and an ashtray. There was also a multi-band radio with a two-foot metal aerial and a small Mukhrāz (a staff of Moses used for prodding goats by Bedouins). His royal highness had things that none of us who were visiting him had available to us. We were his only guests and were seated on his right hand with me being next to him. Several citizens (or what I assumed were citizens based on their attire in robes and Shemagh gutra headwear in red and white checks) also entered the majlis and took seats to his left in random chairs. Several were there at the start and several others came and went throughout the meeting. When the sheikh arrived, everyone stood as you would for a judge entering the room and we then all sat after he sat. The sheikh started by nodding at one of his subjects to his left, who went into a soulful plea of some sort in Arabic. While the man spoke, the sheikh fidgeted with his table possessions. He picked up the Mukhraz and used it to fiddle with his radio from a distance until he grew bored with that. He then started poking his goat-herding stick into the welt of my left shoe on the side nearest him. I wasn’t clear what this implied nor what I should do about it. So I sat and waited my turn to be addressed.
When he turned to me, his first question was about why whenever there was a terrorist event in the United States, the American authorities rounded up only the Islamic men. It was put as a rhetorical question that expected to answer. He then asked a few market-related questions and finished by making a comment about our last six months of performance on his portfolio. This showed complete familiarity with our services and the markets and was his way of insuring that I knew he was still in control, just as he was with everything that took place in his majlis. He then abruptly stood and walked towards a side door with a flourish of his white, gold-trimmed, cape, saying something quietly to his son, the Crown Prince, who had been silent the whole time in the majlis. As the sheikh strode away, the Prince came to me and in his best UCLA English (the sheikh had attended Oxford), said that his father would like us to join him for lunch. This was unexpected and had never happened on previous visits. It was a very big deal and spoke well of his feeling about our work for him. We sat at table with him (this time I was on his direct left). Just like in the majlis, he had more things in front of him than any of us did. He ate and then we ate. He got up when he finished, regardless of where we were in our meal, and came over to say his goodbyes. He whispered something to his son and left.
As we were walked out to our car by the Crown Prince, he told me that his father wanted to send us another $100 million to manage as we saw fit. The Prince agreed when I suggested that he call us to discuss the deployment of those new funds in a manner consistent with their overall allocation plan. The Prince understood the drill. His father was all about “ya’mal istirād” or putting on a good show for his visitors. The Prince then told us that the sheikh had specifically demanded that his guards (one truckload in front and one behind) escort us to our hotel. We said that was unnecessary, but the Prince held up his hand and simply said, “it is so”. We suspected that this had nothing to do with security and everything to do with reminding us as to who had the power in this place.
Today I sit in my new recliner with my side table that has on it a box of tissues and leather caddy with various things like the TV remote and my toothpick holder in it. This part of the living room is my majlis. I’m thinking about finding a good Mukhraz even though I have no goats to prod…other than Buddy.