THE BOOK OF MANA>QIB AND PROPHETIC HISTORY ISLAMIKA INDONESIANA, 1:1 (2014) 130 Book Review Historisitas dan Signifikansi Kitab Mana>qib Shaykh ‘Abd al-Qo>dir al-Ji>la>ni> dalam Historiografi Islam by Ajid Thohir (Jakarta: Kementerian Agama RI Badan Litbang dan Diklat Puslitbang Lektur dan Khazanah Keagamaan, 2011), 453 pp. ISBN 978-602-8766-27-2 THE BOOK OF MANA>QIB AND PROPHETIC HISTORY Heddy Shri Ahimsa-Putra Faculty of Cultural Sciences Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia ahimsa_putra@yahoo.com INTRODUCTION In order to understand to read the book completely with high curiosity, historians and scholars of socio-cultural studies need to be not only critical as usually required in every discipline, but also should be widely open- minded and fully aware that history has diverse meanings in accordance with perspective used to interpret it. Why? This is because this book is an unusual book of history in usual sense of the words. Although written using historical sources or written documents about empirical events occured in the past, this book discusses the meaning of history and its sources started with doubting or questioning—indirectly—various assumptions underlying historical inquiries that have been conducted so far. This book is basically a narration or a story about the Book of Mana>qib that describes the legend of a famous Muslim scholar (‘ulama>’, sing. ‘a>lim) who was known among the Sufis as “Prince of Saints” (sult}a>n al-awliya>’) or “pole of saints” (wali> al-qut}b), Shaykh ‘Abd al-Qadi>r al- Ji>la>ni>. Among Indonesian Muslims, he is popularly known as Syekh ‘Abdul Qadir Jaelani., Of course, this book does not simply discuss the life of this legendary scholar, but also discusses the position and the significance of the Book of Mana>qib of Shaykh ‘Abd al-Qadi>r al-Ji>la>ni>. The question remains, “what are the reasons leading Dr. Ajid to discuss such a book?” We can find the answer to this question throughout this book explicitly and implicitly. A. The Book of Mana>qib of Shaykh ‘Abd al-Qadi>r al-Ji>la>ni> The first question we can raise is what does the author mean by the Book of Mana>qib? Etimologicall, the word mana>qib is plural form of the word manqaba, which is derivated from the word naqaba, meaning “a small hole