In 1906, Snouck was appointed professor of Arabic at Leiden University. He also became an adviser to the Ministry of Colonies, in part to top up his income. For the rest of his life, he continued to make a big impression with his phenomenal knowledge of Islam, the Arab world and the societies in the Dutch East Indies. Administrative functions, official advice, academic education and attempts to convince Dutch colonial thinkers, politicians and administrators of his ideas on how best to govern the Dutch East Indies all demanded attention. Like many others, Snouck's vision of the world changed as a result of the atrocities

of the First World War. He was increasingly convinced of the value of a democratic form of government and, due to the war and the nationalism to which his foreign colleagues succumbed, he lost all faith in the superiority of European civilisation. As a result, he no longer strove after the war for the association of the Indonesian elite with Dutch culture and the formation of a single nation with western and eastern Dutch people. Giving the Dutch East Indies as much autonomy as possible in combination with a democratic form of government was now his aim.