Abdallah Marrash was born in Aleppo, a city of Ottoman Syria, to an old Melkite family of merchants known for their literary interests.

[2] Having earned wealth and standing in the 18th century, the family was well established in Aleppo,[3] although they had gone through troubles: a relative of Abdallah, Butrus Marrash, was killed by the wali's troops in the midst of a Catholic–Orthodox clash in April 1818.

[7] He had built up a large private library[8] to give his three children Francis, Abdallah and Maryana a thorough education, particularly in the field of Arabic language and literature.

[9] Aleppo was then a major intellectual center of the Ottoman Empire, featuring many thinkers and writers concerned with the future of the Arabs.

[16] Marrash founded Kawkab al-Mashriq (The Star of the Orient), a monthly Parisian Arabic-French bilingual journal, the first issue of which was published on 23 June 1882; it was ephemeral.