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Rh 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 ; ; ). 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, or, 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. , 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