This paper focuses on the application of translation theory, and specifically Lawrence Venuti’s theories of “foreignizing” and “domesticating” translation, to the analysis of Jurji Zaydan’s novels in Turkish translation. The novels I will be analyzing specifically are “Kurey? Bakiresi” (Adra Quraysh, 1899) “Abbase Sultan” (Abbasa Ukht al-Rashid, 1906) and “Fergana Güzeli”, (‘Arus Farghana, 1908). The translations of the novels came out in the second half of the 20th century and in the first few decades of the 21st, as Turkish readers became more and more interested (and invested) in Islamic history told in the form of historical novels. By contextualizing the productions of translations and publications of these novels for the Turkish reading public, I will be exploring how Zaydan’s ideas on Arab nationalism, language, religion and gender are carried over into the Turkish language, and how the novels were received in the Turkish public sphere. Turkish is in a unique position as a language that has gone through significant reform at the beginning of the 20th century. The paper will also explore the prevalence of Arabic words in the Turkish language as well as the shifts in context and meaning occurring concurrently. Arabic terms such as umma have been incorporated into the Turkish language with changes in context and meaning, and the close textual analysis of these novels in translation gives us opportunities in which to explore how translation sets the tone of the fictional text. In addition, all three of these novels feature female protagonists, providing the reader with opportunities to see how Arabic, a highly gendered language, is rendered in Turkish, a language that uses gender-neutral pronouns. Through this analysis, the paper will point out to specific choices that the translator has made, further bringing the presence of the translator into the analysis. The main goal of this paper is to discover how translation acts as a bridge between two languages and two different contexts, and how Turkish and Arabic, two languages intermeshed in terms of vocabulary, act as tools for authors and translators to use their agency in transmitting their ideas on Islamic history, nationalism, gender and religion in the public sphere.