Laudian Professor of Arabic
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.
In 1881, a university statute repealed Laud's regulations and provided that the professor was to lecture in "the Arabic, Syriac, and Chaldee Languages", and attached the professorship to a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.
"[7] Failure to deliver a lecture on an appointed day would be marked with a fine of 20 shillings, unless the professor was very ill or had an urgent reason for absence approved by the vice-chancellor.
[6] Changes to the university's internal legislation in the 20th and early 21st centuries abolished specific statutes for the duties of, and rules for appointment to, individual chairs such as the Laudian professorship.
The University Council is now empowered to make appropriate arrangements for appointments and conditions of service, and the college to which any professorship is allocated (St John's in the case of the Laudian chair) has two representatives on the board of electors.
[12] As such, the chair was renamed the Abdulaziz Saud AlBabtain Laudian Professorship in Arabic in recognition of its latest benefactor and its original one.
The electoral board had met to select a successor, but were unable to make a suitable appointment, and so obtained the permission of the university authorities to adjourn.
When the board resumed in 1889, one of the previous applicants, David Margoliouth, re-applied for the position and was successful, even though none of the people recommending him made any mention of whether he knew any Arabic.
