FIRST AMONG SUFIS
Life and Thought of Rabia al-Adawiyya

Widad El Sakkakini
Introduction by Doris Lessing

Octagon Press, London, 1982

Born in Basra in the 8th century, of an impoverished family, orphaned and sold into slavery, Rabia al-Adawiyya rose to become one of the greatest Sufi teachers.

An extraordinary kaleidoscope of myth and reality, of imagination and fact.... Is it not of importance that a woman of such stature and independence of mind existed so early in the story of Islam, to show what women could be, and how they could be regarded?
-- Doris Lessing in the Introduction to First Among Sufis © 1982 by Octagon Press