Abdyl Frashëri was born in 1839 in the village of Frashër in the Vilayet of Janina to a distinguished Muslim Albanian family of Bektashi religious affiliations.

[5] Abdyl, alongside his brothers Naim, Sami and 5 other siblings were the children of Halit Bey (1797–1859)[6] and their paternal family traditions held that they were descendants of timar holders that hailed from the Berat region before coming to live in Frashër.

While their mother Emine Hanım (1814–1861)[6] was descended from Imrahor Ilyas Bey, a distinguished 15th century Ottoman Albanian commander from the Korçë area (Panarit).

He saw duty in areas such as Toskëria, Gegëria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, Thessaly and Macedonia with the last two often on the verge of uprisings by Greek rebels.

He dedicated himself to his studies, and worked with scholars in Ioannina, in particular with the notable Albanian müderris Hasan Tahsini from whom he learned Arabic, Persian, French, and Greek.

[7] In a parliamentary speech on 14 January 1878 he criticised a lack of "progress" and blamed it on "despotism", "ignorance", and incompetent bureaucrats with a call for widespread education in the empire to remedy the situation.

He also met with the representatives of Greece between July and December 1877, primarily on diplomatic grounds, with the aim of forming a military coalition to counter Greater Bulgaria and a threatening Slavic Expansion.

[4][12] He made an important contribution to the elaboration of the political platform that the national movement should adopt after the Russian victory over the Ottoman Empire, and especially after the sign-off of the Treaty of San Stefano.

The Treaty of San Stefano and later the Berlin Congress triggered profound anxiety among the Albanian population and it spurred their leaders to organise a national defence of the lands they inhabited.

On 10 June 1878, about eighty delegates, mostly Muslim religious leaders, clan chiefs and other influential people from the four Albanian-populated Ottoman vilayets, met in the Kosovo city of Prizren.

[4] The delegates set up a standing organisation, the League of Prizren, under the direction of a central committee that had the power to impose taxes and raise an army.

[4] The League of Prizren worked to gain autonomy for the Albanians and to thwart implementation of the Treaty of San Stefano and that of Berlin Congress, but not to create an independent Albania.

[4] The delegates agreed on a minimalist position of preserving Albanian inhabited lands within the empire and upholding local privileges within the Ottoman system.

As one of the main authors of the political platform of the Central Committee of Istanbul, which Frashëri publicly stated through articles published in several organs of the Ottoman and European press during the spring of year 1878, he participated actively in establishing the League of Prizren.

Frashëri, like other League delegates, returned home to create local committees and prepare military forces for resistance[14] and gained support from Albanians in Istanbul and from Southern Albania (Toskëria).

[17] Frashëri, to gain support from southern Muslim Albanians (Tosks) visited tekkes (Sufi monasteries) of the Bektashi order and persuaded their babas (abbots) to assist in the national movement and exercise influence upon notables to join the cause.

[14][17] On 1 November 1878 he represented Toskëria in the First Assembly of Debar, where a resolution was adopted to formally require from the Sublime Porte the creation of the autonomous united vilayet of Albania.

[19] Representing the League of Prizren during May 1879 Frashëri and Mehmet Ali Bey Vrioni sent telegrams to the European capitals of Vienna, Paris and Berlin petitioning the Great Powers against Greek and Serb claims to Albanian inhabited land and calling for socio-political and education reforms in the empire.

[22] He understood that Italy wished to keep out other powers from Albania, in particular the southern areas, as it viewed the region strategically important and wanted to increase its influence in the Adriatic Sea.

[27] A Congress of Debre was held with 130 delegates who agreed to create an autonomous province and Debar Albanians sent a list of demands to Istanbul for unification of four vilayets into one while stressing Ottoman unity and sovereignty.

At this time Frashëri corresponded with European leaders such as Italian prime minister Francesco Crispi on the Albanian geopolitical question.