Hanna Musleh was born in 1954 in Beit Jala to Wahbe and Nijmeh Musleh. During his youth he attended the Mennonite School in Beit Jala, and later went to study in Leningrad State University in Russia for a degree in anthropology, finally obtaining his M.A. from the Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology at Manchester University in England. Musleh then returned to Palestine and has worked as a professor at Bethlehem University since 1980 where he has taught cultural studies, history, anthropology and currently teaches film appreciation, anthropology of religion and philosophy.