The moderate/radical dualism is rooted in Tunisia’s history, since Bourguiba elaborated a specific idea of national identity, Tunisianité, after the independence. It has been common practice for the two authoritarian rulers to portray themselves as protectors of the country and creators of a state-led Islam. In order to do this, they employed a highly repressive security apparatus, described as the only defense against radical Islamists. The 2011 revolution had the objective to break this cycle of control and repression and demonstrated, among other things, how many people were excluded by this mainstream idea of Tunisianité. The election of Ennahdha in the same year seemed to go in that direction, allowing an Islamist party to rule the country for the first time. Interestingly, not only Ennahdha used similar techniques and narratives to the ones used by Bourguiba and Ben Ali, but it self-promoted as an example of successful, moderate Islam. By doing so, Ennahda cut out the rest of the Islamists, reproducing the exclusionary tale. This article analyzes how the narrative portraying a moderate/radical divide in Tunisia is crucial to legitimizing the security apparatus’ control over religion. Moreover, we show how the state uses the idea of moderate Islam to target religious individuals who do not follow this mainstream approach. Through qualitative interviews and ethnographic research, we analyze how security measures take advantage of the work of civil servants (wa’dh and wa’ydhat), and tightly control Salafi groups in post-revolutionary Tunisia. Our paper shows two main results. First, a tight connection between the Ministry of Religious Affairs and the Ministry of Interior, through the exchange of information and the control of imams on part of civil servants. Second, the use of an anti-terrorist register (S17) as a repressive measure for non-mainstream religious citizens. The aim of this paper is to highlight the elements of continuity between the authoritarian and post-revolutionary security apparatuses, showing how post-revolutionary Tunisia still utilizes control techniques and narratives of the previous regime.