El-Hage was born in a Maronite Christian family on 25 July 1960 in Sidon, Lebanon, but grew up in Kuwait, where he converted to Islam. His family was so angered by his conversion that he was forced to leave home and was taken in by a Kuwaiti sheikh who paid for his education, including college. He traveled to the United States for college. From 1978, he studied urban planning at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, then-named the University of Southwestern Louisiana.