The position of Laudian Professor of Arabic, now known as the Abdulaziz Saud AlBabtain Laudian Professor, at the University of Oxford was established in 1636 by William Laud, who at the time was Chancellor of the University of Oxford and Archbishop of Canterbury. The first professor was Edward Pococke, who was working as a chaplain in Aleppo in what is now Syria when Laud asked him to return to Oxford to take up the position. Laud's regulations for the professorship required lectures on Arabic grammar and literature to be delivered weekly during university vacations and Lent. He also provided that the professor's lectures were to be attended by all medical students and Bachelors of Arts at the university, although this seems not to have happened since Pococke had few students, despite the provision for non-attenders to be fined. In 1881, a university statute repealed Laud's regulations and provided that the professor was to lecture in "the Arabic, Syriac, and Chaldee Languages", and attached the professorship to a fellowship at St John's College. In 2016, a large re-endowment from Kuwaiti philanthropist Abdulaziz Saud Al Babtain occasioned a change of the chair's name.
The standard of the professors has varied. The second professor, Thomas Hyde, is described by the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography as a "mediocre orientalist",[1] and one history of the university says of the third professor, John Wallis, that "not only did [he] give no lectures for most of his long tenure, but he did nothing to advance knowledge either."[2] Pococke, Joseph White, Sir Hamilton Gibb, and Alfred Beeston have received high praise for their scholarship.
David Margoliouth (professor 1889–1937) taught the syllabus for the final examinations in lectures over two years, forcing some students to tackle the more difficult texts in their first year of study. Successive professors had few students until after the Second World War, when numbers increased because of the reputation of the then professor, Gibb, and because some British students became interested in Arabic culture while serving in the Middle East during the war. Julia Bray, the first woman to hold the position, was appointed in 2012. The current Laudian Professor, Tahera Qutbuddin, was appointed in 2023 and is the first non-European and first Muslim person to hold the position.
^Cite error: The named reference Hyde was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^Cite error: The named reference Tyacke was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
and 21 Related for: Laudian Professor of Arabic information
briefly active as a priest in the Church of England. He was LaudianProfessorofArabic at the University of Oxford from 1889 to 1937. His father, Ezekiel...
Abdulaziz Saud AlBabtain LaudianProfessorofArabic at the University of Oxford. A Guggenheim Fellow (2020) and a winner of the Sheikh Zayed Book Award...
scholar of Oriental studies who specialises in Medieval to Early Modern Arabic literature. From 2012 to 2023, she was the LaudianProfessorofArabic at the...
concerned with the Middle East – the first on the advice of Thomas Hunt, LaudianProfessorofArabic. The texts appear to have suffered from poor care after...
however, proposed that a fellowship should be devoted to the LaudianProfessorofArabic. The college objected, on the basis that a Celtic Professorship...
(born 10 June 1947) is a Dutch academic who was the LaudianProfessorofArabic at the University of Oxford from 1998 to 2012. After completing his secondary...
church of England, "it had an impact on India with the arrival of the British". Citing the Great Commission, Joseph White, a LaudianProfessorofArabic at...
the Arabic language, and collected many valuable manuscripts. At this time William Laud was both Bishop of London and chancellor of the University of Oxford...
until 1978 at the University of Chicago. He was the LaudianProfessorofArabic at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of St John’s College there from...
became Sub-Librarian and Keeper of Oriental Books and Manuscripts. In 1957 he was elected LaudianProfessorofArabic at Oxford, which chair he held until...
the Laudian professorship ofArabic; and in 1697, on the deprivation of Roger Altham, he succeeded to the Regius chair of Hebrew and a canonry of Christ...
missionary (b. 1703) October 31 Thomas Hunt, English academic, Oxford LaudianProfessorofArabic (b. 1696) Edward Noel, 1st Viscount Wentworth, British peer (b...
Oxford University Statutes Volume 1 – containing the Caroline Code or Laudian Statutes promulgated A.D. 1630. trans. Ward, G. R. M. London: William Pickering...
October 1887) was a British academic and biblical scholar, who was LaudianProfessorofArabic from 1861 until his death. Gandell, from London, was educated...
Scottish academic and clergyman, who was LaudianProfessorofArabic from 1840 until his death. Reay was the only child of a Scottish clergyman, John Reay, and...
Professor of Hebrew – vacant LaudianProfessorofArabic – Julia Bray Professorof Egyptology – Richard B. Parkinson Boden Professorof Sanskrit – James Mallinson...
Global Information