Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi

Abd al-Ghani's family descended from the Banu Jama'a, which traditionally provided qadis (chief judges) for the Shafi'i fiqh (school of Islamic law) of Sunni Islam for the Mamluk rulers of Syria and Egypt. The Banu Jama'a hailed from Hama before settling in Jerusalem in the 13th century. One of its principal branches remained in Jerusalem, providing the preachers for the al-Aqsa Mosque, while another principal branch relocated to Cairo, the Mamluk capital, under Badr al-Din Muhammad Ibn Jama'a in 1291 after being appointed by Sultan al-Ashraf Khalil as qadi al-qudat (head judge of the sultanate) and shaykh al-shuyukh (head of the Sufi brotherhoods). Badr al-Din died in 1333 and his direct descendants died out in the 15th century. Abd al-Ghani's family descended from Badr al-Din's younger brother Abd al-Rahman, who had remained in Jerusalem. Shortly after the conquest of Mamluk Syria by the Ottoman Empire in 1516, part of Abd al-Rahman's family moved briefly to Nablus then permanently to Damascus, which attracted numerous people from Palestine in the 16th century. The family became known as "al-Nabulsi" (A Nisba, "Of Nablus" ) after their short stay in Nablus.

Abd al-Ghani was born in Damascus in 1641. His father, Isma'il, was a jurist, and had switched to the Hanafi school of jurisprudence after a debate with a Hanafi student. This school of thought was preferred by Ottoman rulers of Syria. Isma'il was a contributor to Arabic literature, wrote on legal matters, taught at the Umayyad Mosque and Damascene madrasas (Islamic schools) and occupied the post of qadi in Sidon for a certain period. He supervised Abd al-Ghani's early education but died in 1653 when Abd al-Ghani was 12 years old. Even before the age of 20, Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi had started teaching and giving formal legal opinions (fatwa). He joined both the mystical orders Qadiriyya and Naqshbandi and spent seven years in isolation in his house studying the mystics on their expression of divine experiences. He taught in the Umawi Mosque in Damascus and the Salihiyya Madrasa, becoming renowned throughout the region as an accomplished Islamic scholar. He travelled extensively, seeing Istanbul (1664), Lebanon (1688), Jerusalem (1689), Palestine (1689), Egypt (1693), Arabia (1693), and Tripoli (1700). He met with Shaykh Abd al-Razzaq al-Kilani, a descendent of Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, on his way to Edirne and Istanbul. Some of his travels were documented in memoirs he wrote, such as the four journeys he made between the years 1688 CE and 1700 CE, with one memoir being produced for each. He produced hundreds of scholarly works and was identified by contemporaries and later scholars as a significant local authority.

He left over 200 written works. Among al-Nablusi's contemporaries, his studies of 13th-century Sufi writer Ibn Arabi were his most famous works. His views on religious tolerance towards other religions were developed under the inspiration of the works of Ibn Arabi. He made two visits to Palestine, in 1690, and 1693–4, visiting Christian and Jewish sites, as well as sacred Muslim shrines Maqam (shrine), and he enjoyed there the hospitality of local Christian monks. Subjects he wrote about include Sufism, Rihla, agriculture, and poetry. He also wrote ethnographic works based on his travels to Tripoli, Egypt, Jerusalem, Lebanon and other areas of the Middle East.