Born January 13th 1865 in Scutari (Uskudar) Constantinople, sources claim he went to school in Varna while his father was an official there, and that he had private tutors, it also claimed that his fathers private secretary Muallim Naci (later a famous Literary figure) also tutored him.

Cherif was later sent by his father to the Mektebi Sultani in Constantinople the most prestigious school in the Ottoman Empire, where he would have studied in primarily in French and also Ottoman Turkish.