"Fatima's life is beset with what seems to be disasters. Her journey leads her from Morocco to the Mediterranean, Egypt, Turkey and, finally, to China. It is in China that she realizes that what seemed at the time to be really unfortunate events were an integral part of her eventual fulfillment."--Back cover.

"This is the ninth book in the series of traditional stories for children retold by the Afghan author Idries Shah"--Back cover. "The original version of Fatima the Spinner and the tent was published in 1979 in Tales of the Dervishes: Teaching-Stories of the Sufi Masters over the past thousand years by Idries Shah"--Title page verso.