Karachi, Pakistan - A new line of jeans for Muslims who want to stay comfortable when they pray has drawn mixed reactions from religious hardliners in Pakistan, where the trousers are being made.
Designed by an Italian company and named after the Arabic term for Jerusalem, Al Quds Jeans are baggy with a high waist to allow freedom of movement during the repeated kneeling for Islamic worship.
They have extra large pockets for glasses, trinkets and prayer beads and also feature discreet green seams at the top of the belt loops, in honour of the faith's sacred colour.
"The idea behind the jeans is not political, ideological or religious at all. It is a cultural act," said Susanna Cavalli, chief of product development for Al Quds Jeans.
The Italian firm says it chose the volatile southern Pakistani city of Karachi as the site for its new one-million-euro factory so that Muslims would be manufacturing as well as wearing the trousers.
"We wanted the jeans to be sewed by Muslim hands -- besides having considered the trade and cost viability," Cavalli told AFP during a recent visit to the sprawling plant.
The jeans are not yet on sale in conservative Pakistan -- where their 25-euro price tag is almost half the minimum monthly wage -- but they have already provoked strong reactions.
"Muslim youths pay no heed to petty issues like dress when they offer their prayers. They are above such things," said Munwar Hasan, secretary general of Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan's biggest religious party.
"Jeans are liked by the Muslim youth but whoever has designed the new jeans must have done it for commercial reasons," he said.
The manufacturers, however say that the jeans are not just an attempt to cash in on the relatively untapped market of the world's more than one billion Muslims, but that they sensitively fufil a need.
The trousers were the brainchild of Al Quds Jeans president Giorgio Lotta, a billionaire from northeast Italy.
"Mr Lotta was looking at a picture in an Italian magazine showing Muslims offering prayers and they all wore jeans," said Cavalli.
"He just assigned the idea to his fashion designer friend Luca Corradi, one of the top names in the Italian fashion industry."
A test lot of some 10,000 pieces sold out in Italy, where they were sold at outlets of the French retailer Carrefour, she added.
Cavalli said the company's most important markets are expected to be the Middle East and North America, while it will also target Asia and Africa.
"We have booked an order from the US for one million jeans already and we are expecting even bigger orders from that market," she said confidently.
The Karachi factory is set to roll out some 15,000 pairs of the jeans a month, providing a boost for Pakistan's vital textiles industry and employing some 10,000 workers.
"We have got very good terms at the factory with a good salary and other facilities," said 28-year-old worker Abdul Rauf, adding that it employed both women and men.
Local partner and factory director Zubeir Gilani did not allow an AFP reporter access to the factory, saying that he did not want publicity for security reasons.
Jeans were declared undesirable by the Jamaat-e-Islami party in the 1980s but in Karachi -- viewed as Pakistan's most cosmopolitan city despite a history of violence -- some of the faithful said the new variety could catch on.
"I still do not wear jeans to honour that disciplinary advice, but (jeans) seem to be not so repulsive now, as I see our activists wearing jeans with a passion," said Ameer Wajahat, a former activist for the party's student wing.
Pakistan's top Islamic cleric, Grand Mufti Rafi Usmani, said also praised the idea of the jeans but said the brand name Al Quds could cause offence.
"I think it is a defamatory act to name the jeans after such a revered place and I don't consider it right at all", said Usmani, who also runs one of Pakistan's largest Islamic schools.
"(The jeans) are a good effort but they could be made more attractive for Muslims by changing its name while keeping signifying its specific features," he added.
The company's Cavalli said the name was chosen as a symbol of peace because of the city's importance to three of the world's major religions.
"The place Jerusalem is equally sacred for Jews, Christians and Muslims ... and this holy town provides the basis for alliance for all the three major religion and cultures," she said.