(CE:431b-432b)
BUTRUS AL-SIDMANTI, a monastic writer in Arabic during the eleventh century. Butrus came from the village of Sidmant in the district of Bani Suef. The village is known as Sidmant al-Jabal; E. AMÉLINEAU records it as Posotoment.
The precise dates of birth and death of Butrus are unknown beyond the fact that he lived around the middle of the eleventh century. He was primarily a biblical scholar, and his exegetic work on the Gospels stands out among his miscellaneous writings in Arabic, including biographies of some saints and a number of religious treatises. Apparently his works were known to later writers and theologians such as Abu al-Barakat ibn Kabar and Abu Shakir Butrus ibn al-Rahib, who lived in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. He is sometimes described as Armenian (Cheikho, 1924, p. 62), which appears to be wrong, as we know his birthplace was in Upper Egypt. A theological treatise by him dated A.M. 976/A.D. 1260 is preserved in the Vatican Library (cf. Steinschneider, no. 116, p. 135; Cheikho, 1924, p. 62).
AZIZ S. ATIYA
