Hussein was born to a Muslim Fellah family in Musmus in 1936,[2][3][4] during British Mandatory rule in Palestine. He attended elementary school in Umm al-Fahm, a town near his home village.[2] He was educated in Nazareth, where he graduated from Nazareth Secondary School.[3] Hussein described himself as a "lax Muslim", once writing in 1961, "I do not pray and I do not go to the mosque and I know that in this I am disobeying the will of God ... thousands of people like me are lax in fulfilling the divine precepts. But these disobedient thousands did not keep silent about what our pious judges who pray and fast, have kept silent".[5]