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The star is and was Zubenelgenubi. The short form Zuben'ubi was just to make it fit on the page, like "Rigel Kent." and "Kaus Aust." in the same list. "Zubenel." would have been more consistent with those. Although many navigators read and say "Zuben'ubi" and thought that this was the name or a variant name for the star, that was never the intention, as far as I can tell.

By contrast, the name Al Na'ir was supposedly trying to indicate a glottal stop --a quick gap between the syllables. There was not much justification for this, and whether there was a glottal stop in some "original Arabic" is not particularly relevant since other star and constellation names are pronounced with light glottal stops without being spelled with one. For example, the constelletion Bootes is usually pronounced as if Bo'otes (this one is of Greek, not Arabic origin, by the way).

Frank Reed