 Nabulsi was born in Salt, Jordan in 1908, during the Ottoman period.The ancestors of the Nabulsi family were Arabs from central Syria who originally served as members of the elite Ottoman "sipahi" units that were sent on a 1657 expedition to bring Jabal Nablus under centralized Ottoman rule.The family soon became part of the merchant class in Nablus, hence their name "Nabulsi" ("from Nablus").