Ilyas al-Harawi (Elias Hrawi, born 1930) became president of Lebanon in 1989 at a time when his nation was torn by war, its economy crippled, and its defense and foreign policy dominated by neighboring Syria.

Ilyas al-Harawi was born in 1930 in Hawsh al-Umara', a suburb of the city of Zahle in the Bekáa valley in the eastern part of Lebanon. He obtained a degree in commerce from the Jesuit St. Joseph University in Beirut. He was a scion of a family of large landowners that was represented in the Chamber of Deputies beginning in 1943. He married Mouna Jammal and they had five children. He was elected a deputy of Zahle in the 1972 parliamentary elections. He served in the cabinet as the minister of public works during the period 1980-1982. In 1979 Harawi had joined the parliamentary bloc called the Independent Maronite Deputies Bloc, which included many presidential aspirants. He...