former the ideas of personality and infinite power have vanished, all power being conceived as inherent in God. It is recognized that the moral individual must have some kind of initiative, and yet since God is omnipotent and omniscient man must be conceived as in some sense foreordained to a certain moral, mental and physical development. In the history of the Christian church emphasis has from time to time been laid specially on the latter aspect of human life (cf. the doctrines of election, foreordination, determinism). Even those theologians, however, who have laid special stress on the limitations of the human will have repudiated the strictly fatalistic doctrine which is characteristic of Oriental thought and is the negation of all human initiative (see Predestination; Augustine, Saint; Will). In Islam fate is an absolute power, known as Kismet, or Nasib, which is conceived as inexorable and transcending all the physical laws of the universe. The most striking feature of the Oriental fatalism is its complete indifference to material circumstances: men accept prosperity and misfortune with calmness as the decree of fate.
FATE, in Roman mythology, the spoken word (fatum) of
Jupiter, the unalterable will of heaven. The plural (Fata, the
Fates) was used for the “destinies” of individuals or cities,
and then for the three goddesses who controlled them. Thus,
Fata Scribunda were the goddesses who wrote down a man’s
destiny at his birth. In this connexion, however, Fata may be
singular, the masculine and feminine Fatus, Fata, being the usual
forms in popular and ceremonial language. The Fates were
also called Parcae, the attributes of both being the same as those
of the Greek Moerae.
FATEHPUR, Fathipur or Futtehpoor, a town and district
of British India, in the Allahabad division of the United Provinces.
The town is 73 m. by rail N.W. of Allahabad. Pop. (1901) 19,281.
The district has an area of 1618 sq. m. It is situated in the
extreme south-eastern corner of the Doab or tract of country
between the Ganges and the Jumna, which respectively mark its
northern and southern boundaries. The whole district consists
of an alluvial plain formed by the deposits of the two great rivers.
The central part is almost perfectly level, and consists of highly
cultivated land interspersed with jungle and with tracts impregnated
with saltpetre (usar). A ridge of higher land, forming
the watershed of the district, runs along it from east to west at
an average distance of about 5 m. from the Ganges. Fatehpur
therefore consists of two inclined planes, the one 5 m. broad,
sloping down rapidly to the Ganges, and the other from 15 to 20
m. broad, falling gradually to the Jumna. The country near the
banks of the two rivers is cut up into ravines and nullahs running
in all directions, and is almost entirely uncultivable. Besides
the Ganges and Jumna the only rivers of importance are the
Pandu, a tributary of the Ganges, and the Arind and Nun,
which both fall into the Jumna. The climate is more humid
than in the other districts of the Doab, and although fevers are
common, it is not considered an unhealthy district. The average
annual rainfall is 34 in.
The tract in which this district is comprised was conquered in 1194 by the Pathans; but subsequently, after a desperate resistance, it was wrested from them by the Moguls. In the 18th century it formed a part of the subah of Korah, and was under the government of the wazir of Oudh. In 1736 it was overrun by the Mahrattas, who retained possession of it until, in 1750, they were ousted by the Pathans of Fatehpur. In 1753 it was reconquered by the nawab of Oudh. In 1765, by a treaty between the East India Company and the nawab, Korah was made over to the Delhi emperor, who retained it till 1774, when it was again restored to the nawab wazir’s dominions. Finally in 1801, the nawab, by treaty, reconveyed it to the Company in commutation of the amount which he had stipulated to pay in return for the defence of his country. In June 1857 the district rose in rebellion, and the usual murders of Europeans took place. Order was established after the fall of Lucknow, on the return of Lord Clyde’s army to Cawnpore. In 1901 the population was 686,391, showing a decrease of 2% in the decade. The district is traversed by the main line of the East Indian railway from Allahabad to Cawnpore. Trade is mainly agricultural, but the town of Fatehpur is noted for the manufacture of ornamental whips, and Jafarganj for artistic curtains, &c.
FATEHPUR SIKRI, a town in the Agra district in the United
Provinces of India, on the road from Agra to Jaipur. Pop. (1901)
7147. It is a ruined city, and is interesting only from an archaeological
point of view. It was founded by Akbar in 1569 as a
thank-offering for the birth of a son, Selim, afterwards the
emperor Jahangir, foretold by Selim Chisti, a famous Mahommedan
saint. The principal building is the great mosque, which
is said by Fergusson to be hardly surpassed by any in India.
“It measures 550 ft. east and west by 470 ft. north and south,
over all. The mosque itself, 250 ft. by 80 ft., is crowned by three
domes. In its courtyard, which measures 350 ft. by 440 ft.,
stand two tombs. One is that of Selim Chisti, built of white
marble, and the windows with pierced tracery of the most
exquisite geometrical patterns. It possesses besides a deep
cornice of marble, supported by brackets of the most elaborate
design. The other tomb, that of Nawab Islam Khan, is soberer
and in excellent taste, but quite eclipsed by its surroundings.
Even these parts, however, are surpassed in magnificence by
the southern gateway. As it stands on a rising ground, when
looked at from below its appearance is noble beyond that of
any portal attached to any mosque in India, perhaps in the whole
world.” Among other more noteworthy buildings the following
may be mentioned. The palace of Jodh Bai, the Rajput wife of
Akbar, consists of a courtyard surrounded by a gallery, above
which rise buildings roofed with blue enamel. A rich gateway
gives access to a terrace on which are the “houses of Birbal and
Miriam”; and beyond these is another courtyard, where are
Akbar’s private apartments and the exquisite palace of the
Turkish sultana. Here are also the Panch Mahal or five-storeyed
building, consisting of five galleries in tiers, and the audience
chamber. The special feature in the architecture of the city is
the softness of the red sandstone, which could be carved almost
as easily as wood, and so lent itself readily to the elaborate
Hindu embellishment. Fatehpur Sikri was a favourite residence
of Akbar throughout his reign, and his establishment here was
of great magnificence. After Akbar’s death Fatehpur Sikri
was deserted within 50 years of its foundation. The reason for
this was that frequent cause in the East, lack of water. The
only water obtainable was so brackish and corroding as to cause
great mortality among the inhabitants. The buildings are
situated within an enclosure, walled on three sides and about
7 m. in circumference. They are all now more or less in ruins,
and their elaborate painting and other decoration has largely
perished, but some modern restoration has been effected.
See E. B. Havell, A Handbook to Agra and the Taj, Sikandra, Fatehpur Sikri, &c. (1904).
FATHER, the begetter of a child, the male parent. The
word is common to Teutonic languages, and, like the other
words for close family relationship, mother, brother, son, sister,
daughter, appears in most Indo-European languages. The
O. Eng. form is fæder, and it appears in Ger. Vater, Dutch vader,
Gr. πατήρ, Lat. pater, whence Romanic Fr. père, Span. padre, &c.
The word is used of male ancestors more remote than the actual
male parent, and of ancestors in general. It is applied to God,
as the Father of Jesus Christ, and as the Creator of the world,
and is thus the orthodox term for the First Person of the Trinity.
Of the transferred uses of the word many have religious reference;
thus it is used of the Christian writers, usually confined to those
of the first five centuries, the Fathers of the Church (see below),
of whom those who flourished at the end of, or just after the age
of, the apostles are known as the Apostolic Fathers. One who
stands as a spiritual parent to another is his “father,” e.g. godfather,
or in the title of bishops or archbishops, Right or Most
Reverend Father in God. The pope is, in the Roman Church,
the Holy Father. In the Roman Church, father is strictly applied
to a “regular,” a member of one of the religious orders, and so
always in Europe, in English usage, often applied to a confessor,
whether regular or secular, and to any Roman priest, and
sometimes used of sub-members of a religious society or fraternity
