Jachya was born on 11 September 1930 in Manna, a small town in the region of South Bengkulu, as the son of Muhammad Jachya. He completed his basic education at a Muhammadiyah-organized Hollandsch-Inlandsche School (HIS, equivalent to primary school) in Curup in 1944 and Chu-Gakko (middle school) in the Bengkulu city in 1945. He later moved to Malang, East Java, and continued his education at a local state high school from 1950 to 1953. He studied law at the Airlangga University in Surabaya from 1953 to 1957, but did not complete his degree.
