Francis Marrash

Francis bin Fathallah bin Nasrallah Marrash , also known as Francis alMarrash or Francis Marrash alHalabi, was a Syrian writer and poet of the Nahda movementthe Arabic renaissanceand a physician. Most of his works revolve around science, history and religion, analysed under an epistemological light. He travelled through the Middle East and France in his youth, and after some medical training and a year of practice in his native Aleppo, during which he wrote several works, he enrolled in a medical school in Paris yet, declining health and growing blindness forced him to return to Aleppo, where he produced more literary works until his early death.

Francis Marrash was born in Aleppo, a city of Ottoman Syria , to an old Melkite family of merchants known for their literary interests. Having earned wealth and standing in the 18th century, the family was well established in Aleppo, although they had gone through troubles a relative of Francis, Butrus Marrash, was martyred by Greek Orthodox fundamentalists in April 1818. Other Melkite Catholics were exiled from Aleppo during the persecutions, among them the priest Jibrail Marrash. Francis father, Fathallah, tried to defuse the Sectarian conflict by writing a treatise in 1849, in which he rejected the Filioque. He had built up a large private library to give his three children Francis, Abdallah and Maryana a thorough education, particularly in the field of Arabic language and literature.

Source: Wikipedia