List of Professors
| Name | Professor | Education | College as Professor | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pococke, EdwardEdward Pococke | 1636–1691 | Oxford, Magdalen HallMagdalen Hall and Corpus Christi College | Corpus Christi College | Pococke started studying Arabic with William Bedwell in 1625, and became chaplain to the Levant Company in Aleppo (in modern-day Syria) in 1630 to improve his knowledge further. He returned in 1636 at the request of William Laud, who had decided to make Pococke the first appointment to the chair. Thomas Greaves was Pococke's deputy between 1637 and 1641 when Pococke travelled to Constantinople for research and to collect manuscripts. Pococke was appointed Regius Professor of Hebrew in 1648, but his refusal to promise loyalty to the Commonwealth of England led to the parliamentary committee supervising the university to order his removal from both professorships. However, the committee was persuaded to stay the order until a replacement could be found, and it was never implemented. Pococke has been described as "the finest European Arabist of his time ... and among the greatest of all time." |
| Hyde, ThomasThomas Hyde | 1691–1703 | CambridgeUniversity of Cambridge (King's College) and The Queen's College, Oxford | QueenThe Queen's College | Hyde was Bodley's Librarian from 1665 to 1701 (when he resigned because of "the toil and drudgery of daily attendance in all times and weathers") and was also Regius Professor of Hebrew from 1697. His interest in oriental languages came from his father, a rector in Shropshire. He has been described as "a mediocre orientalist", who carried out little teaching despite having significant linguistic skills. He had a strong intellectual interest in oriental languages and peoples, although his inability to finish work meant that he published little. Although he carried out his work at Oxford in a "lethargic manner", a Dutch scholar described him as "stupor mundi" ("the wonder of the world") when told of his death. |
| Wallis, JohnJohn Wallis | 1703–1738 | Oxford, WadhamWadham College and Magdalen College | Magdalen College | Wallis was an absentee professor, holding parish posts at various times in Essex, Hampshire and Wiltshire. John Gagnier, who became Lord Almoner's Professor of Arabic in 1724, was appointed as deputy to Wallis in 1718. |
| Hunt, ThomasThomas Hunt | 1738–1774 | Oxford, Christ ChurchChrist Church | Hart Hall | Hunt was also Lord Almoner's Professor of Arabic from 1740 to 1747 and Regius Professor of Hebrew in 1747 until his death in 1774. He published extensively on Arabic and Hebrew matters, and was a well-regarded scholar who encouraged others. |
| White, JosephJoseph White | 1774–1814 | Oxford, WadhamWadham College | Wadham College | White was prompted by his benefactor, John Moore (later Archbishop of Canterbury), to study Syriac, Arabic and Persian, leading to his unanimous election to the chair in 1774. His Bampton Lecture in 1784, a comparison of Christianity and Islam, was widely praised. He resigned his fellowship at Wadham in 1787 after being appointed rector of Melton, Suffolk, but retained his professorship, also becoming Regius Professor of Hebrew in 1804. His scholarship has led to him being described as one of "the major Hebraists of the century". |
| Winstanley, ThomasThomas Winstanley | 1814–1823 | Oxford, BrasenoseBrasenose College | St Alban Hall | Winstanley succeeded Thomas Warton as Camden Professor of Ancient History in 1790 and was elected principal of St Alban Hall in 1797. He held the Laudian chair in addition to the Camden chair. His version of Theodore Goulston's 1623 edition of Aristotelous peri poiētikēs: Aristotelis de poetica liber (1780), with a Latin version of the text and accompanying notes, was used at Oxford until sometime in the 19th century. |
| Knatchbull, WyndhamWyndham Knatchbull | 1823–1840 | Oxford, Christ ChurchChrist Church | All Souls College | Knatchbull, a son of Sir Edward Knatchbull, 8th Baronet, was a clergyman of various Kent parishes from 1811 until his death in 1868. He was considered to be a possible successor to Alexander Nicoll, Regius Professor of Hebrew, who died in 1828; Edward Bouverie Pusey was appointed instead. |
| Reay, StephenStephen Reay | 1840–1861 | Oxford, St Alban HallSt Alban Hall | — | Reay, a Scottish clergyman, published little: the only work that he is known to have authored was a pamphlet, "Observations on the defence of the Church Missionary Society against the objections of the Archdeacon of Bath" (1818), although he also edited a couple of Hebrew texts. Reay was appointed Under-Librarian at the Bodleian Library in 1828 by Bulkeley Bandinel, Bodley's Librarian. Reay held this post and his professorship until his death. |
| Gandell, RobertRobert Gandell | 1861–1887 | Oxford, St JohnsSt John's College and The Queen's College | Magdalen Hall and Corpus Christi College | Gandell was also a prebendary of Wells Cathedral from 1874, and a canon of the cathedral from 1880. His publications included a four-volume edition of John Lightfoot's Horae Hebraicae (1859), and commentaries on some books of the Old Testament. |
| Margoliouth, DavidDavid Margoliouth | 1889–1937 | Oxford, NewNew College | New College | Margoliouth had a superlative academic career as a student, winning many prizes and scholarships, including awards in Hebrew, Syriac and Sanskrit. When he applied for the chair, his referees gave no indication that he knew any Arabic, but within five years of his appointment he published two important works on Arabic. Lacking regular assistance from a tutor to instruct students in elementary Arabic, Margoliouth had a heavy workload, but effectively left students to acquire the rudiments of the language themselves. He also taught Syriac and Ethiopic when needed. |
| Gibb, Sir HamiltonSir Hamilton Gibb | 1937–1955 | EdinburghUniversity of Edinburgh and the School of Oriental Studies, London | St John's College | Gibb was previously a professor at the School of Oriental Studies, and was highly regarded as a teacher and scholar with a wide range of knowledge. Arabic expanded as an academic subject at Oxford after the Second World War, as students returned from the war with experience of the Middle East, with international students attracted by Gibb's reputation. He left in 1955 to became James Richard Jewett Professor of Arabic at Harvard University and director of Harvard's Center for Middle Eastern Studies. |
| Beeston, AlfredAlfred Beeston | 1955–1978 | Oxford, Christ ChurchChrist Church | St John's College | Beeston developed an interest in languages at school, teaching himself Arabic. After initially studying classics at Oxford, he switched to Arabic and Persian, under Margoliouth. He finished his doctorate while working in the oriental books department of the Bodleian Library, becoming Keeper of the department and sub-librarian in 1946 after his return from war service in Palestine. As professor, he expanded the Arabic syllabus (which previously stopped in 1400) to ensure that students studied all periods from pre-Islamic verse to the 20th century. He has been described as "one of the foremost Arabists of the twentieth century". |
| Madelung, WilferdWilferd Madelung | 1978–1998 | GeorgetownGeorgetown University, University of Cairo, and University of Hamburg | St John's College | Madelung was a cultural attaché at the West German Embassy in Baghdad between 1958 and 1960. He was a professor at the University of Chicago before moving to Oxford, holding a Guggenheim Fellowship from 1972 to 1973. Since retiring from Oxford, he has been a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Ismaili Studies and a Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. |
| van Gelder, Geert JanGeert Jan van Gelder | 1998–2012 | AmsterdamUniversity of Amsterdam and University of Leiden | St John's College | Van Gelder was Lecturer in Arabic at the University of Groningen from 1975 to 1998. He was appointed as a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1997 and a Fellow of the British Academy in 2005. His interests cover a wide range of topics in classical Arabic prose and poetry. |
| Bray, JuliaJulia Bray | 2012 onwards | Oxford, St HildasSt Hilda's and St Cross | St John's College | Bray, who studied Arabic and Persian at Oxford, studies the relationship between Arabic literary and social history. Before taking up the Laudian professorship, she was Professor of Medieval Arabic Literature at Paris 8 University. |
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