[2] Born in Managua on May 4, 1942, to Nicaraguan mother and Palestinian father from Gaza,[2][1] Hassan studied engineering at the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN).

[5] He joined the FSLN in its infancy in the 1960s and was a key figure in the organization by the time the uprising came to a head in the late '70s, having built a network of subversives in Managua’s slums.

[2] He was head of the activist National Association of Professors and became its delegate to the United People's Movement, a coalition of civic groups supporting the Sandinistas, which he founded in 1978.

[5] In 1979, he joined the five-member Junta of National Reconstruction (RN), alongside fellow Sandinistas, intellectual Sergio Ramírez and commander Daniel Ortega, as well as Violeta Chamorro, widow of La Prensa publisher Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal; and prominent businessman Alfonso Robelo.

[6] He was removed from his post as Mayor for failure to follow orders from the nine-member FSLN National Directorate, at times at odds with ideological hardline members Tomás Borge and Bayardo Arce.