Francis Marrash

Francis Marrash
Native name	فرنسيس بن فتح الله بن نصر الله مرّاش
Born	1835, 1836 or 1837 Aleppo, Aleppo Eyalet, Ottoman Syria
Died	1873 or 1874 Aleppo, Aleppo Vilayet, Ottoman Syria
Occupation	Scholar publicist writer poet physician
Language	Arabic
Period	Modern (19th century)
Genres	Poem prose poetry opinion journalism
Literary movement	Nahda
Relatives	Abdallah Marrash (brother) Maryana Marrash (sister)

Francis bin Fathallah bin Nasrallah Marrash (Arabic: فرنسيس بن فتح الله بن نصر الله مرّاش, ALA-LC: Fransīs bin Fatḥ Allāh bin Naṣr Allāh Marrāsh; 1835,^[1] 1836,^[2][a] or 1837^[3][b] – 1873^[5] or 1874^[1]), also known as Francis al-Marrash or Francis Marrash al-Halabi, was a Syrian scholar,^[6] publicist,^[6] writer and poet of the Nahda or the Arab Renaissance, and a physician. Most of his works revolve around science, history and religion, analysed under an epistemological light. He traveled throughout West Asia 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.

Historian Matti Moosa considered Marrash to be the first truly cosmopolitan Arab intellectual and writer of modern times. Marrash adhered to the principles of the French Revolution and defended them in his own works, implicitly criticizing Ottoman rule in West Asia and North Africa. He was also influential in introducing French romanticism in the Arab world, especially through his use of poetic prose and prose poetry, of which his writings were the first examples in modern Arabic literature, according to Salma Khadra Jayyusi and Shmuel Moreh. His modes of thinking and feeling, and ways of expressing them, have had a lasting influence on contemporary Arab thought and on the Mahjari poets.

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