They were both founded before 1724, but records of the holders of the chairs only date from that year.
[1] Both universities had existing chairs in Arabic, the Laudian Professorship at Oxford and Sir Thomas Adams's Professorship at Cambridge.
At Cambridge the chair was initially founded as a readership.
Before it was upgraded to a professorship before or in 1815 it was usually combined with the Sir Thomas Adams's Professor of Arabic chair and held by the same person.
The chair, "which for two centuries" had "a distinguished record, but carried only a nominal stipend", was discontinued on the death of the incumbent, Professor Anthony Ashley Bevan, in 1933.