 The name, a nisba, derives from the Arabic word for garden (a loanword from Middle Persian “bōyestān”) and is thought to date back to at least the 15th Century.The family has its roots in a place named El-Bassatin, in the village of Jableh, near Lattakia, Syria.In the beginning of the 16th century, and after the Ottoman conquest of the Middle East, Muqim (Abu Mahfouz) left his home town and went towards Mount-Lebanon, stopping at Dahr Safra, then Bqerqacha, a village at the foot of the Cedars of Lebanon.