Cairo, January 31: Seeking to change usual concepts relating fashion to nudity, a Turkish magazine is helping Muslim women

follow latest fashion styles while keeping their Islamic teachings. Cosmopolitan, Elle, Vogue, Marie Claire, its all about sex and naked skin, Ibrahim Burak Birer, 31, who started the magazine told the Daily Mail. But we, and millions of women around the world, believe that fashion can also be different." Angered by nude images in fashion magazines, Birer decided to create a magazine that would contest the usual concepts relating fashion with nudity. Working with his friend, Mehmet Volkan Atay, 32, he created Ala, a magazine described as the avant-garde of veiled fashion. The name of the magazine, which stems from the Ottoman era, means "the most beautiful of the beautiful." The fashion magazine was described by German magazine Radikal as the Vogue of the veiled. Hijab, an obligatory code of dress in Islam, has always been a highly divisive issue in modern Turkey, amid opposition from the secular elite, including army generals, judges and university rectors. Hijab was banned in public buildings, universities, schools and government buildings in Muslimmajority Turkey shortly after a 1980 military coup. In 2007, Emine Erdogan, the wife of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was blocked from entering a military hospital or refusing to remove her hijab. In September 2010, the Higher Education Board ordered Istanbul University, one of the country's biggest, to end its hijab ban. The rules cover almost all Turkish universities. Islam sees hijab as an obligatory code of dress, not a religious symbol displaying ones affiliations. Hijab Fashion For Birer, the magazine helps Muslim females take on fashionable clothes while observing their faith. We had no experience with magazines before that. Were marketing people, Atay told SpiegelOnline. We specialized in recognizing market niches." With only six issues out, the magazine has been so successful that they have needed to increase circulation multiple times. Currently, it has a circulation of 30,000 with some 5,000 subscriptions being sent abroad. Some 1,500 of the subscriptions are sent to Germany alone where the magazine has a big following amongst devout Turkish migrants. "There is an Islamic faith, and there is a Muslim lifestyle," Atay explains. "Nowadays every lifestyle has its own magazine: sailors, athletes, hunters, musicians. Only veiled

women didn't have one of their own. Until now, that is." In a changing atmosphere in Turkey for hijab, fashion magazines for the veiled women were gaining an increasing approval. We dont believe that women should hide themselves, Atay said. Even the veiled have a right to stylish fashion.