So I have been putting this off, but now I feel that I have to ask, how do you use the search function? I have been looking for arab sword threats, but when I type in "Arab swords" or even "Arab" I don't get any hits, I only get 12 topic total, and I am sure that a few topics on Arab swords have been brought up in the past. Somehow I even get threads that don't show Arab at all.

I assume you mean Arab sword "threads" as opposed to "threats...."

Just clicking Search in the forum and typing "arab" into the keyword box without changing any other setting yields 137 threads. Typing "arab swords" yields close to 9500 results. The reason for that is, by default, it looks for either word. So there are lots of threads with the word "swords" in them. To get threads with "arab" and "swords" click the radio button "Search for all terms." That gives 54 entries. Deleting the "s" in swords gives 56 entries.

I think the main problem is that many wouldn't call items Arab swords, but might use terms like "Persian," "muslim," "islamic," etc. (Obviously, Persians are different than Arabs, but not everyone knows that) The key to successful searching is not always knowing how you'd phrase something, but how the majority of posters would. Try other options and see what you get.