It was a casual conversation with her mother about the dearth of Arabic language educational texts that set Jinnane Tabra on a course that would see her business dubbed the ‘Arabic Amazon’.
 

According to Jinnane Tabra, while studying business at university in Qatar she “had an idea in third or fourth year that I would really like to own a business”.
 

But that one ‘big idea’ didn’t leap out at her. At least not until a conversation in 2008 with her mother over dinner changed her life.
 

“My mom is a librarian (in Qatar) and she was talking about how Arab parents come into the library and complain that their children keep taking home English books,” Tabra says. “They don’t feel that their kids are as strong in their mother tongue. (So) that got me reflecting on my experience: if people in the Gulf, in an Arab country, are saying this, it must be ten times worse for people overseas.
 

“It was really a light bulb moment, and immediately gave me the idea that we need an online Arabic bookstore like Barnes & Noble or Amazon, where people from all over the world can have access to Arabic resources.”
 

Thus was Araboh.com, the Arabic language online bookstore, born – with Tabra as founder and managing director.
 

In just two years, Tabra has developed an online resource of titles for people living in non-Arab countries who seek fun, educational books for all ages incorporating Arabic themes. Books are stocked in Arabic, Arabic/English, and Arabic/French.
 

As a child with Arab heritage growing up in Scotland with a Scottish mother and an Iraqi father, Tabra struggled to keep the essence of her Arabic language heritage. When her family moved to Iraq for a year, Tabra was in primary school and thus formed the ‘foundation’ of her Arabic language skills.
 

After a stint back in Scotland, Tabra’s family eventually moved to Doha, Qatar when she was in high school, to “get more of the Arabic culture and language”. Tabra continues: “They (my parents) were scared I would lose the language (while I was) growing up. Learning a language like Arabic in Scotland is a real struggle, with my parents trying to get textbooks from overseas.”
 

Tabra says her experience is not unique. “My Arabic is not as strong as I would like it to be as an Arabic woman. That’s the case here with Qataris growing up in Qatar and Emiratis in the UAE; even in the Arab world, there is such a focus on English,” she says. “They give them a foundation in English…and Arabic is suffering and falling behind.”
 

“The Arabic of this generation is not what it would have been for our parents’ generation. The spoken language is very different from what you read or write.” With the essence of an idea, Tabra used the resources available to her at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar – the Doha campus of the world-renowned business school – to help her incubate it.
 

She drew on the faculty for advice on different aspects of her business plan as it developed; but it was Professor George White, who teaches an Entrepreneurship course at the university, who remains her “ongoing mentor”.
 

Tabra faced several challenges setting up her business. She chose Sharjah, in the United Arab Emirates, to base the business as it offered her Freezone status. That is, she was allowed 100% ownership of the company (rather than requiring a locally-based partner) and enabled her to bypass red tape procedures for sending and receiving books. More importantly, there were few companies using e-commerce to act as role models for her fledgling business.
 

“It was really hard starting up an e-commerce business in the Gulf a couple of years ago, because there weren’t that many e-commerce businesses to go to for advice,” Tabra explains.
 

She says this has recently improved, as has access to payment gateways, which are important factors for customers.
 

Her business continues to grow with a staff of 13 – four in Doha and nine in Sharjah – not counting Tabra and her husband. The company remains very family-oriented, with Tabra revealing that all titles stocked by the company have been read by herself or a member of her family.
 

Today Araboh.com stocks more than 1,000 Arabic language titles. Her customer base stretches from libraries in Scandinavia and Australia to individual buyers in the USA. Among Araboh’s customers are US soldiers serving in Iraq, who order children’s Arabic dictionaries so they can learn the language.
 

This summer, Tabra plans to introduce their first original products – a series of four education flashcards and two activity books – working with writers and illustrators she knows to be experienced.
 

“We’re starting out really simple,” Tabra says.
 

But in the future for Tabra is a Masters in Education, rather than a more expected MBA. “I think of myself in education than in business,” she says.

Ode to "Oh"

Tabra’s first step after the initial brainstorm with her mother was to look up domain names and catchy titles for the business.
 

“Araboh.com happened to be available,” she says.
 

In the Gulf Arab countries, adding the suffix ‘oh’ to a name is a term of endearment. “It’s like a nickname. It’s more often used for little kids’ names. It makes it more informal. I tacked on the ‘oh’ to Arab to indicate that it’s about Arab communities, it’s informal, it’s family-like, which is reflective of what Arab communities are.