The Book of Mormon describes Lehi as a Manassite merchant living in the Kingdom of Judah, and was familiar with the language of Judah's neighbors, particularly the Egyptian language after which Nephi is believed to have been named. After Lehi and his party leave the ill-fated Jerusalem, they travel through the Arabian wilderness for many years until they reach the land of Bountiful, where they build a ship to cross the oceans. Either as a merchant or during this exodus, Lehi knows a form of the Arabic language as it exists at the time, and it is believed by Latter-day Saints to become influential in the linguistics of the Book of Mormon.
Abinadi is believed to be one such Arabic-influenced name. And Arabic Sam (also the name given to Lehi's third son) is the Arabic cognate of Hebrew Shem.
Yet it translates freely back into the Arabic language, for ziff is a special kind of curved sword somewhat like a scimitar which is carried in a sheath and often used for ornamentation as well as for more practical purposes.
Yet, in Arabic custom, the place of power rests in the judgment seat and whoever occupies that seat, is the authority and power.
The fact that an Arabic scholar such as this sees a beautiful internal consistency in the Prophet Joseph Smith's translation of the book, is of great interest.
The best-known example is the Arabic writing system, and the term “abjad” is derived from the first four letters of the traditional order of the Arabic script.
(Arabic digits are sometimes called Indic numerals; however, this nomenclature leads to confusion with the digits currently used with the scripts of India.) Arabic digits are referred to as Arabic-Indic digits in the Unicode Standard.
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