The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (768 page)

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(643–712).
Third patriarch and major organizer of the
Hua-yen
school of Chinese Buddhism. He arranged Buddhist teachings into ‘five levels and ten qualities’, with Hua-yen at the height, and he integrated different teaching by affirming the interdependence and interpenetration of all phenomena.

 
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(Arab.). In Islamic law, a legal opinion, given on request to an individual or to a magistrate or other public official, concerning a point of law wherein doubt arises, or where there is not an absolutely clear ruling in existence. One qualified to give such an opinion is a
muft
, who would pronounce according to a particular
madhhab
(‘school of law’). A fatw
may be contested, but only on the basis of existing precedent and law; it cannot, therefore, be regarded as an ‘infallible pronouncement’, but it commands assent where it can be seen to be well-grounded. See also
SHAIKH AL-ISL
M
.

 
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Faust
.

Initially a reprobate man who made a pact with the
devil
and met a commensurate end. However, he became (through the
Enlightenment
and into the 19th cent.) a heroic figure who sets his face against the supposed limitations of humanity.

 
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Fa-yen Wen-i
(
Fayan Wenyi, Jap., H
gen Bun'eki
;