With the unfolding transitions in Egypt and Tunisia, citizens have emerged from stifling authoritarian regimes and expressed their strong preference for democracy. We are witnessing on one hand, the acceptation of free and fair elections and of political rights for citizens and on the other hand, the recognition of the moral role of religion in politics. The latter translates into multiple initiatives to preserve the status of Islam as the religion of the nation through a discriminatory use of law, detrimental not simply to religious minorities but also to Muslim citizens who exert freedom of speech. Such a combination of political rights (one man, one vote) and moralization of the political community presents a challenge for the dominant theories of democracy, that emphasize the decline of religion in democratic transitions. This paper will demonstrate that this importance of religion in the current political transitions is not simply the consequence of the political influence of Islamist parties but is also related to long standing State policies since the foundation of the Nation-States. In other words, it introduces State’s actions and policies as a factor in the politicization of Islam as well as a key factor in the current political transitions in the Middle East. It will shed light on the neglected role of the secular nationalist rulers from Bourguiba to Nasser in reshaping and controlling Islamic institutions and religious establishment to make them fit into the national framework. Consequently, it argues that political Islam is not only the monopoly of Islamic parties but the common denominator from “liberals” to salafis. It identifies this common denominator as the preservation of the national community over the protection of individual rights. It will discuss the influence of these specific political cultures on the current political transitions in particular and the democratization process in general. The cases of Tunisia and Egypt will be presented, based on broader research of three years, on constitution, role of Islam in the legal system, in the education system and political parties concerning several other Muslim-majority countries.