"Ahmed no longer goes to school. He is my only son and must learn the trade of his ancestors," Said Mahmoud, as he cut blocks from a bar of laurel-perfumed soap in his workshop at the Khan of the Egyptians, the ancient inn in Tripoli's old town.
Tripoli, the main town in north Lebanon, has more than 200 archaeological remains from the era of the Marmaluks, the dynasty which from its base in Egypt ruled the Arab empire in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
"I follow to the letter my own father's methods. I am happy just to introduce new colors and certain methods of carving the soap to diversify its forms," says Mahmoud, seated beneath a portrait of his father dated 1940.
It was in 1800 that one of his ancestors introduced the technique of making soap based on olive oil and bay laurel into the Khan, then a caravansary for Egyptian traders.
"The secret of good production lies first of all in using the best quality olive oil, even if the prices are painful. A barrel of good quality olive oil costs more than $600 while the same amount of animal fat used in mass-produced soap costs only $50," he said.
In the nearby 'Soap Souk,' 43-year-old Badr Hassan, whose business has also come down from father to son, has developed and modernized the art, creating some 200 varieties of differently perfumed and colored soaps.
"Everything depends on the herbs, the honey or the essential oil that is added. We use bay laurel and others, particularly camomile, mint, musk and amber," said Hassan.
"In fact there are four main types: soap based uniquely on olive oil which the Europeans call Marseille soap; soap perfumed with herbs and used to treat certain problems; royal soap, to which we add the rarest scents and which is sculpted with a knife; and finally wedding soap, which is shiny white, the symbol of purity," he added.
Referring to Tripoli's renowned 'Perfume Souk,' Hassan said: "People go there as if to a clinic and buy herbs to treat this or that skin disease or even to treat a fall from a horse. These are the same herbs that we use in our soap."
In his two-storey workshop, Hassan normally works alongside 11 members of his family. At busy times another 20 relatives are summoned to help.
This ancient town has been the center of the soap industry for 400 years. Hassan's ancestors worked in it for decades until his father in his declining years abandoned it in favor of trading in gold.
In the 1990s Hassan inherited the workshop. It is sited in a travelers' inn built by the Ottomans to centralize the soap trade. He decided to return to making soaps again.
Today, he says, he has started to export his products to France and they are sought by embassies and tourists who visit Tripoli specially to buy them.
The soap industry is one of the rare traditional industries which continue in this region of countless olive groves, says Omar Tadmuri, a professor of history and Islamic civilization at the Lebanese University of Beirut.
Over the centuries, the industry has prospered and Tripoli has seen more than 200 workshops turning out scented and colorful handmade soaps.
© 2004 Agence France-Presse
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