BEIRUT, February 14 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, assassinated on Monday, February 13, was admired by fellow Lebanese as a self-made businessman-turned-politician who championed the country’s reconstruction drive after the devastating 1975-90 civil war.

Born on November 1, 1944, to a poor farm worker from the southern city of Sidon, Hariri attended Beirut Arab University in 1965 to study accounting.

He later cut his learning short and sought a better future in Saudi Arabia at the age of 18.

After years of working various jobs, he founded his first construction company in the early 1970s.

According to Agence France-Presse (AFP), Hariri struck gold in 1977 when he took up the challenge of building, in just six months, a palace for late Saudi king Khaled in the resort of Taef before an Islamic summit, as a sub-contractor for Oger, an affiliate of a French group.

He won the confidence of then-Crown Prince Fahd, now Saudi Arabia's king.

In 1978 he was awarded the rare privilege of Saudi nationality and became Arabia's emissary to Lebanon.

Hariri then went on to become Saudi Arabia's leading entrepreneur, acquiring Oger in 1979 and founding Oger International, based in Paris.

His interests extended across banking, real estate, oil, industry and telecommunications.

He founded a television station, Future TV, in Beirut and purchased stakes in several Lebanese newspapers.

Most Lebanese feel a peculiar sense of pride toward Hariri, though many will not readily admit it, according to the Middle East Intelligence Bulletin.

He was the biggest shareholder in Solidere, the joint-stock company that sent bulldozers to revive central Beirut after Lebanon's 15 year civil war.

In 1982, he donated 12 million dollars to Lebanese victims of Israel's devastating invasion and helped clean up Beirut streets with his own money.

In 1991, he financed the first national construction plan to regenerate Beirut’s commercial center.

Hariri educated 30,000 Lebanese students inside and outside Lebanon, and spent millions of dollars of his own personal money to redefine the face of social hierarchies in Lebanon.

Hariri's personal fortune has been difficult to estimate, but he had been described as one of the world's 100 richest people, with financial circles putting his wealth at around 10 billion dollars, according to AFP.

Long regarded as the great political survivor, Hariri was first named prime minister at the relatively young age of 48 in 1992.

He headed five governments before finally stepping down in October last year amid persistent differences with President Emile Lahud.

Hariri's admirers hailed him as the savior of Lebanon's war-ravaged economy.

For his detractors he was a spendthrift, whose corrupt administration dragged an already feeble economy deeper into debt and used sky-high interest rates to stabilize the pound.

According to AFP, Hariri's political carrier was punctuated by repeated spats with the president, a former army man with a reputation for integrity.

When Lahud was first elected in 1998, he stepped down from the premiership in a move analysts interpreted as an acknowledgement that power was slipping out of the prime minister's hands.

Hariri returned to office following elections in September 2000, but his new tenure was dominated by disputes with the president.

He resigned last October and recently joined calls by the opposition for Syrian troops to leave Lebanon in the run-up to a general election in May.