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Jeans for prayers

Italian company designs jeans for Muslims

ROME: They are high-around-the-waist, wide-around-the-leg and have lots of pockets to hold watches, bracelets, glasses and other knickknacks. A new line of jeans, Al Quds, designed by a small company in northern Italy, caters to Muslims seeking to stay comfortable while they pray.

The bagginess is to ensure the wearer avoids stiffness while bending down repeatedly during prayers. The pockets are for holding all the accessories Muslims have to take off while they worship.

And the jeans have green seams — because green is the sacred colour of Islam. The price will be $30.44 (about Rs. 1,370).

Abdel Hamid Shaari, president of the Islamic Cultural Institute in Milan, said low-priced jeans specifically designed to keep Muslims comfortable could open up a big market in Islamic countries and countries with large Muslim populations. "This could be a good idea, thinking of the comfort," he said. Al Quds — Arabic for Jerusalem — has produced an initial 9,500 pairs that were sold to the French retailer Carrefour SA.

Carrefour said it did not intend to market the jeans exclusively to Muslims. A spokeswoman said: "We target everyone. We do not have a political or religious connotation."

The jeans are manufactured at a plant near Karachi, Pakistan, that employs about 15,000 people. "I wanted to respect [the fact] that if these are the first jeans for Islam, they should be built by Muslim hands," he said.

AP

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