Mr Hrawi, a Maronite Christian, says he wants to bring harmony to the next generation of Lebanese by weakening the country's sectarian system.

ECONOMIST: Lebanon

Al-Khiyam itself has a population of 15, 000 inhabitants, the large majority of them Shia Muslims, although there are also some Orthodox and Maronite Christians.

BBC: NEWS | Middle East | In focus: Al-Khiyam

Also looming in the next few months is the election by parliament of a (Maronite Christian) president to replace the pro-Syrian Emile Lahoud whose term ends on 25 November.

BBC: NEWS | Middle East | One year on: Lebanon political paralysis

The country's president must be a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim, and a Shiite Muslim gets the post of speaker of parliament even though they are the largest sectarian group in the country.

NPR: Divided Lebanon Wary of Hezbollah 'Victory'

Many Maronite Christians yearn for one, too.

ECONOMIST: Lebanon and Iraq

Mr Hirst, the dean of foreign correspondents in Beirut after five decades in residence, begins his tale with Lebanon's creation in the wake of the first world war, as a French gift to the Maronite Christians of the coastal Levant who had long seen Paris and the Vatican as their saviours.

ECONOMIST: Two writers unpick Lebanon��s complexities