The Balkan Chronicle

Arta, an Albanian citizen"To each their own," said Selim, a Muslim who gave only his first name.

September has seen devout Muslims again flocking to Albania's only "burqa beach" after the Ramadan holy month, where women bathe in full hijab − a short distance from the "other" Albania where girls romp in scanty bikinis.

Your skin is a reflection of your inner health. When our skin looks good, we feel so much more confident. Following that, it is fair to say that our skin plays a central role in our beauty — the overall appearance gives that come-hither message.

Worries about skin affect us whatever our age. The young worry about spots and acne, and the over-thirties worry about lines and wrinkles.

Entrepreneurs producing "halal" cosmetics say the global market is booming as more Muslims opt for beauty products that conform to Islamic rules.

Famiza Zulkifli made her first halal soap four years ago, after searching in vain for the right products to bathe her baby. Now her business has an annual turnover of $1.6 million.

Increased global interest in Islamic fashion offers students an opportunity to tap a growing market worth more than $96 billion (Dh350 billion) say heads of UAE-based fashion universities.

Tamara Hostal, Director of French Fashion University ESMOD Dubai (ESMOD), said this figure comprises 50 per cent of the world's 1.6 billion Muslims, each spending at least $120 (Dh438) a year on modest clothing.

Along İstanbul’s busy Eminönü waterfront women swathed in dark coats and scarves knotted once under the chin jostle past others clad in vivid colors and head coverings carefully sculpted around the face.

Azra Aksamija is a Sarajevo born Austrian artist, architect, and architectural historian. Her broader artistic and academic practice explores representation of Islamic identities in the West, spatial mediation of identity politics, Orientalism, and cultural interaction through architecture.

She graduated from the Faculty of Architecture at the Technical University Graz, Austria in 2001 with distinction, and received her M.Arch. from Princeton University, USA in 2004. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Architecture, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (History Theory and Criticism Section / Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture).

More than 124,000 people in Europe developed cancer last year because they are overweight, and rising body fat levels threaten to add tens of thousands more to their ranks, experts said on Thursday.A study of cancer among overweight people in Europe showed the proportion of new cases of the disease caused by people being fat was highest in women and in central European countries like the Czech Republic, Latvia, Slovenia and Bulgaria.

A Muslim woman garbed in a head-to-toe swimsuit - dubbed a "burquini" - may have opened a new chapter in France's tussle between religious practices and its stern secular code.