Khan was born in Bhopal into a Urdu Speaking-Pathan family, which migrated from India to Pakistan in 1952. He obtained a B.Sc. degree in 1960 from the University of Karachi, majoring in physical metallurgy. He then obtained an engineer's degree in 1967 from Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands, and a Ph.D. degree in metallurgical engineering from the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium in 1972. __