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FAUSTUS, Arm. Pʿawstos (Latin, “fortunate”), fifth-century author of the Patmutʿiwn Hayocʿ (History of the Armenians) or Buzandaran. He is surnamed Buzand, a word taken to mean either “the Byzantine” or, as Anahit Perikhanian has proposed, “composer of epics”: from OIr *bava(t)-zanta-, cf. NP. zandvāf “Zoroastrian, lit. chanter of the Zand”…

FAYYĀŻ, ʿALĪ-AKBAR MAJĪDĪ, scholar and educator (b. Mašhad, 1316/1898; d. Mašhad, 4 Šahrīvar 1350 Š./26 August 1971; Figure 1). Son of Sayyed ʿAbd-al-Majīd Ṯeqat-al-Eslām, head steward (ḵādem-bāšī) of Āstān-e Qods-e Rażawī (q.v.), Fayyāż received his elementary and secondary education at traditional schools (see EDUCATION iii, iv) in Mašhad, studying Islamic…

FAYŻ MOḤAMMAD KĀTEB, Afghan court chronicler and secretary to the amir Ḥabīb–Allāh Khan (q.v.; r. 1319-37/1901-19). Fayż Moḥammad was born in 1279/1862-63, in the village of Zard Sang in the Qarābāḡ district of Ghazni (Ḡaznī), and died in Kabul in 1931. His father, Saʿīd Moḥammad b. Ḵodāydād, was of the…

FAYŻ-E KĀŠĀNĪ, MOLLĀ MOḤSEN-MOḤAMMAD, b. Šāh Mortażā b. Šāh Maḥmūd (b. 1006/1598 or 1007/1599; d. 1090/1679), prolific and versatile scholar of the Safavid period, celebrated chiefly for his Sufi inclinations. Born in Kāšān to a family renowned for its learning, Fayż began his education with his father, Šāh Mortażā, from…

FAYŻĀBĀD, a toponym of auspicious meaning (“blessed abode”) which enjoys great popularity throughout the Iranian world. Besides numerous villages of various importance (e.g. 77 occurrences of the name in Iran according to Pāpolī-Yazdī, p. 392), it designates two important towns: one is the main town and administrative center of the…

FAYŻĪ, ABU’L-FAYŻ (b. Agra, 5 Šaʿbān 954/24 September 1547 [Dīvān, f. 78b]; d. Lahore, 10 Ṣafar 1004/15 October 1595), Mughal court poet, also known as Fayżī Fayyāżī, who wrote mainly in Persian. His family was descended from a Yemeni who had settled in Sind in the 15th century; in the…

FAYŻĪ, ABU’L-QĀSEM (b. Qom, 1906; d. Haifa, 19 November 1980), Bahai teacher, missionary, and author. Fayżī’s father, ʿAbd-al-Ḥosayn Khan, and mother, Ṣeddīqa, were first cousins and descendants of Mollā Moḥsen Fayż (q.v.). Fayżī moved with his family to Tehran at the age fifteen, where his parents, although they were not…

FAŻĀʾEL-E BALḴ, a thirteenth-century local history from Balḵ in eastern Khorasan, with a collection of biographies of Balḵ’s early Islamic scholars and mystics (Figure 1). The Fażāʾel-e Balḵ is the earliest surviving local history of Balḵ, a major city and district in Khorasan. The Fażāʾel-e Balḵ differs from many other…

FĀŻEL KHAN GARRŪSĪ, MOḤAMMAD (b. 14 Ḏu’l-ḥejja 1198/29 October 1784; d. 1259/1843), poet, litterateur, and secretary during the reigns of Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah (1212-50/1797-1834) and Moḥammad Shah Qājār (1250-64/1834-48). His family belonged to the Turkmen Bāyandor tribe and resided at Bījār, the administrative center of Garrūs. Fāżel Khan was the title…

FĀŻEL MĀZANDARĀNĪ, MĪRZĀ ASAD-ALLĀH, Bahai scholar and missionary (b. Bābol, 1298/1881; d. Ḵorramšahr, 5 Dey 1336 Š./26 December 1957). His father Mīrzā Maḥmūd was a merchant and government official and a Shaikhi by religion. His mother was the daughter of the poet Mīrzā Āqā Bozorg Qaṣṣāb Māzandarānī. Fāżel received his…

FĀŻEL TŪNĪ, MOḤAMMAD-ḤOSAYN, (b. Tūn, 25 Moḥarram 1288/15 April l871; d. Tehran, 13 Bahman 1339 Š./2 February 1960; Figure 1), scholar and teacher of Islamic philosophy. Like Sayyed Moḥammad Kāẓem ʿAṣṣār and Jalāl-al-Dīn Homāʾī, two other prominent men of learning, Fāżel Tūnī belonged to a generation of scholars who had received…