This paper proposes a new approach to the study of Political Islam, centered on the exploration of Islamist movements’ theological imaginary. Drawing on the work of Charles Taylor (2003), the paper defines theological imaginary as the transformation of theology into the deep normative notions that enable rank-and-file believers’ practice of society. The data are drawn from ethnographic research conducted in 2012-2014 and in 2018 among Nur students in Turkey, including participant-observation, interviews, and archival sources. A politically influential community of roughly six million people, Nur students are followers of Said Nursi, a Sunni scholar who preached in the Ottoman Empire/Turkey from ca. 1890 to 1960. The broader research explores the religious reasoning that unfolds during Nur students’ sohbets (collective readings of Nursi’s Qur’anic exegesis) and the socio-political activism that these collective reflections inspire. This paper focuses specifically on Nur students’ understanding and practice of democracy through an analysis of the following: the theological anthropology that sustains Nursi’s conception of democracy as a moral imperative; the connections existing in Nur students’ theological imaginary between pious management of the self and ethical management of the state; Nur students’ practical engagement with democracy during the 2010 national debate on constitutional reform and during the 1971, 1980, and 2016 military coups. The proposed methodology makes three important contributions to the study of Political Islam. First, it provides a link that is missing in other sociological and political science approaches to Islamic groups, which are unable to bridge the apparent gap between theological teachings and political action. Second, it unravels what to many observers of Islamic movements appears as a paradox, namely the rejection of politics as an autonomous field independent from God’s authority (hakimiyya), and the simultaneous overcome of this rejection by a type of engagement that is ultimately political. The paradox is no longer such if one sheds out analytical models exclusively focusing on opportunity structures and political mobilization and delves on the reflexive processes that originate in the cultivation and embodiment of religious principles. Third, by firmly positioning Islamic political behavior within the wider context of religious reasoning, it demonstrates the profound rationality and normativity that sustains Islamic political projects. This challenges the narratives that present Political Islam merely as either an ideological instrument in the hands of oppressive regimes, or as a vessel to channel political frustrations and socio-economic grievances.