Sixteenth-century writings from across the Ottoman Empire teem with accounts of social gatherings known as majalis (s. majlis). Though the term could refer to gatherings quite different in nature and in purpose, majalis usually featured some mix of scholars, poets and grandees; often involved a component of intellectual or poetic sparring; and were always governed by intricate rules of social conduct. The frequency of such accounts across literary genres suggests that the politics of who visited whom, sat where, and said what was not to be taken lightly in the early modern Ottoman Empire. In my paper, I will examine the ways in which the majalis of sixteenth-century Damascus were mediated by a range of written texts. Scholars of the era wrote countless descriptions of Damascene social gatherings, often in stunning detail: many devoted considerable space to recording what we might call attendance lists, seating arrangements and transcripts of majalis as they unfolded in very particular, carefully described spaces: gardens, courtyards, shrines. Yet many of these accounts had a clearly prescriptive intent, as well: whether by drawing upon their own experiences or upon those of their Muslim forebears, many writers sought to instruct their contemporaries on the proper rules of etiquette within these spaces. By examining the production and circulation of Damascene writings on majalis, I will show the importance of this social institution for establishing hierarchies and negotiating difference within the urban environment. Yet in the context of the newly expanded empire of the sixteenth century, the significance of this project hardly remained local, as scholars used the gatherings and the genres they spawned to project their own vision of what it meant to be an upright, learned Muslim man in the very diverse Ottoman lands.