DAMASCUS, Syria — To say the least, she is modest. She is covered from head to foot in a traditional black robe. She has no boyfriend and will never have one, let alone one named Ken.

Across the Middle East and North Africa, Fulla is the top-selling doll due to a simple appeal: Dismayed by the Western values that Barbie is thought to promote, Arab parents and their children are grabbing her up because she embodies the image of a proper Muslim woman.

Fulla, a Syrian company's answer to Barbie, embodies the image of the proper Muslim woman. Above, a young buyer surveys the hundreds of accessories, such as prayer rugs and in-line skates, available for the doll. Beneath her robes, left, the doll features a less conservative ensemble.

"She's popular because she's one of us. She's my sister. She's my mother. She's my wife. So, as a parent, I'd like Fulla for my daughter," said Mohammed al-Sabbagh, manager of a Damascus toy store.

Conventional wisdom holds that whether you love her or hate her, Barbie means something to everyone. After all, she quickly became a commercial and cultural icon after she hit store shelves in 1959 and has generated an estimated $24 billion in worldwide sales.

Yet if sales figures are any indication, Mattel's famous export has become alien to what Sabbagh and many other parents in the Middle East want for their daughters.

In front of her is the object of her craving: shelves lined with Fulla in various guises and some of her 200-plus accessories, including prayer rugs, prayer beads, portable karaoke players, in-line skates and party dresses.

Fulla is sold in two basic outdoor styles, each for about $9 and each befiting the traditional Muslim demand that women cover themselves in public.

One has a head-to-toe black robe, or hijab, commonly donned in the Persian Gulf region. The other is for the Arab countries of the eastern Mediterranean, where full-length robes of different colors are worn.

Indoors, where Muslim women are allowed to be seen uncovered by other women or by close male relatives, Fulla has more leeway. There, like Barbie, she is a clotheshorse, with skirts and even lace underwear and bathing suits.

Her shopping dilemma could not please her father more, even though it means that on every business trip he takes, he is hectored to return bearing Fulla accessories.

"I instantly agreed to buy the doll. Unlike Barbie, Fulla remains a traditional Arab woman whose life revolves around home and family," said Samar's dad, Saeed Halabi, 42, who works at a private trading company.

Like Barbie, Fulla is 11 1/2-inches tall, but she is noticeably less bosomy: Fulla's creators have gone to great lengths to make her modest and conservative.

Fulla's face has a "kind look, the Arab look," said Fawaz Abidin, head of marketing for the doll at Damascus-based New Boy, her maker. She has Arab values, not those of Barbie the American, he added.

Fans of Barbie, though, would probably take issue with Abidin's characterization of what separates Fulla from the American doll: "She's loving. She respects her mother and father. She's good to her friends. She's honest and doesn't lie. She likes reading. She likes — rather, she loves — fashion."

Furthermore, young, ambitious women with means, education and the courage to defy social convention are flocking to Arab capitals such as Beirut, Dubai and Cairo. Whether Muslim or Christian, they drink alcohol. They have boyfriends. They experiment with sex. Though they are a distinct minority, their numbers are growing.

Fulla's creators are aware that their main market is parents upset by what they see as Western-inspired views on sexuality and the role of women.

In other words, Fulla is more than a doll. She is a bulwark for Arab daughters against a fast-changing world in which traditional social controls are weakening.

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