Sahin (which means falcon in Turkish) was born to a poor family in the village of Taşlıpınar in the Beyşehir district of Konya Province, Turkey.
After finishing primary school in his village, secondary school in Beyşehir and high school in Konya, Sahin went to Germany on a scholarship in 1973 to study metallurgical engineering for Etibank, a large state-owned mining company.