Scholars at Aarhus University have researched and taught on Arabic and Islam since 1953, when the first ethnological research expedition of the university's  Moesgård Museum arrived in the Arabian Gulf, led by Klaus Ferdinand.

An Institute for Semitic Philology was established in 1963 under Professor Erling Hammershaimb, an expert on Ibn Khaldun. In 1994, the Institute for Semitic Philology was combined with the Department for the Study of Religion, and the current programs in Arab and Islamic Studies were inaugurated in 2005. The Arab and Islamic Studies Unit was established in 2007 by Professor Mark Sedgwick.

In 2011, the Unit became a part of the Department of Culture and Society in the newly established Faculty of Arts, and the Arab and Islamic Studies Unit became the current Islamic Cultures and Societies Research Unit.