Paraenetic Character of Modern Islamic Prose

Paraenetic literature encompasses didactic literature which promotes adequate and morally correct manner of action. One of the features of paraenesis is its normativism proposing models of ideal heroes, characteristic for a given social background. Paraenetic literature has its roots in Ancient Greece. In the subsequent centuries Christianity, drawing on the ancient canon of an ideal man, proposed moral values and ideal heroes hitherto unknown. At the same time, what Christianity did in the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Baroque, was to develop new genres that aimed at conveying paraenetic content. The concept of the aesthetic role of literature as opposed to its utilitarian character was created as late as in Romanticism. In the Arab world the utilitarian and aesthetic functions have stood hand in hand since the very beginning. In the 1980s a movement described as “Islamic literature” emerged. This genre has a didactic function and aims at forming attitudes and moral behavior patterns that go in line with the rules of Islam. This paper analyses models of heroes who are inspired by Prophet Muhammad and face modern dangers and challenges, resulting from the Western pressure.