Comparative literature as a method of study of historical relationships between national literatures is hardly a century old. Though its position in Western literary scholarship is firmly established, its application to the history of Islamic literatures is still in its first stages, The literatures of the Muslim peoples can be said to belong to one common tradition, the basis of which is religious rather than literary. This tradition was established in the 'Abbãsid period, during which Islamic culture was exposed to the strong influence of two main outside factors: the eastern tradition, in which Pahlawi the literature acquired the first place, and/western, mainly Greek, tradition, first made available to the Muslims through the medium of oriental languages and only later in the original tongue. The eastern tradition proved the more potent of the two in the field of literary composition, and its influence, under which many literary genres, conventions and modes of expression developed in Islamic literature, was both stronger and. more durable. The effect of the western tradition, far-reaching in the fields of philosophy and science, was, in literature, superficial and mostly confined to literary criticism.