Abu Dhabi Majalis At Sheikh Zayed Festival 2025-2026 Reinforces Emirati Identity

Abu Dhabi Majalis is preparing an extensive presence at the Sheikh Zayed Festival 2025 - 2026 in Al Wathbah, turning the traditional majlis into a live, open space for dialogue, cultural exchange, and social learning for visitors of all ages and backgrounds.

The initiative presents the majlis as both a living heritage setting and a social laboratory. Visitors are invited to sit, talk, and reflect on how this institution still shapes community life, while understanding why it remains central to national identity across the emirate.

At Sheikh Zayed Festival, Abu Dhabi Majalis designs daily and weekly programmes that mix discussion circles, artistic performances, and heritage competitions. Questions on identity, values, and memory guide these sessions, helping guests explore how traditions adapt within a modern UAE context, including among residents and international visitors.

Within these activities, facilitators encourage participants to answer structured questions on Emirati heritage, social cohesion, and shared values. Visitors are also invited to share personal stories linked to family majalis, hospitality practices, and social customs, turning the space into an archive of lived experiences as well as a public conversation hub.

The programme pays special attention to children and youth, who are introduced to the majlis as a historical and current institution. Interactive tasks explain how majalis once organised village life and still support decision-making, conflict resolution, and knowledge transfer, helping younger generations connect daily experiences with long-standing Emirati social structures.

Heritage competitions hosted by Abu Dhabi Majalis during the festival cover national history, well-known local expressions, and customary social practices. Winners receive incentive prizes, which keeps participation high and turns the majlis setting into an attractive educational and recreational space that rewards cultural knowledge as much as entertainment.

Traditional artistic performances run alongside these competitions. The programme features Emirati songs and folk arts that express cultural and civilisational identity, allowing visitors to observe how music, poetry, and movement are linked with the majlis environment and with everyday life in Emirati society, rather than existing only as staged folklore.

Abu Dhabi Majalis and Sheikh Zayed Festival activities for Emirati heritage networks

The presence of Abu Dhabi Majalis at Sheikh Zayed Festival also points to a wide physical network of majalis across the emirate. These include neighbourhood social spaces, cultural majalis, and 23 business majalis affiliated with the Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which work alongside other public and private venues.

Across this network, Abu Dhabi Majalis connect citizens, residents, and visitors with community leaders, business figures, artists, creatives, and women of the community. These interactions support economic activity, ease dialogue between public and private sectors, strengthen social values, and sustain an environment where informal discussion complements formal institutions and policy frameworks.

Different types of majalis operate with specific priorities while sharing common social goals, as outlined below.{TABLE_1}

Business majalis provide structured venues where companies can deepen relationships, discuss joint projects, attract foreign investment, and exchange expertise with regional and international institutions. Social and cultural majalis focus on recording social bonds, preserving shared customs, and supporting practices that keep values such as mutual respect and hospitality active in daily life.

Historical majalis, including Qasr Al Hosn Majlis and Sheikh Zayed Majlis, keep the memory of place visible, explaining how Abu Dhabi’s built environment and communities developed over time. Sports-related majalis add another layer, giving teams and clubs space to exchange experience and ideas while supporting the wider sports movement in the emirate.

Within the festival site itself, Abu Dhabi Majalis builds a family-oriented destination that emphasises Emirati hospitality. The mix of discussion, heritage education, and artistic performance promotes compassion and social cohesion, while also supporting the Sheikh Zayed Festival message of safeguarding Emirati heritage and handing it between generations in a framework that links authenticity with contemporary life.

With inputs from WAM