Professor Codera then retired from his chair in the Arabic Language at the Universidad de Madrid in order to create room there for Asín; Ribera in Zaragoza allowed Asín to leave to assume this Madrid "cátedra" in 1903. Professor Asín lived in the same well-connected boarding house as Codera, and was well received in the university. By 1905 Professor Ribera had also come to Madrid; together with Asín they soon founded the journal "Cultura Española" (1906–1909). Asín attended international conferences in Algeria (1905) and Copenhagen (1908), where he engaged other Arabists and academics in Islamic studies. In Madrid he continued to prosper, eventually being admitted to the royal court where he gained the friendship of Alfonso XIII. He was elected a foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1921.