In studies of contemporary Islam messianism is often considered as an aspect of Islamic radicalism. We adopt here a different perspective, focusing on the Sudanese Muslim thinker Mahmud Muhammad Taha (1909-1985). Executed as an apostate in 1985, Taha was the leader of an organisation known as the Republican Party between 1945 and 1969, and as the Republican Brothers from 1969 to 1985. The party never participated in elections but was a laboratory for the creation of a new approach to politics that made it possible to conceive of power without violence or domination. In the 1950s, Taha proposed a socialist and federal constitution and criticised both secular nationalism and the political theology of Mawdudi and the Muslim Brotherhood. In 1953 he wrote: "There is no doubt in my mind that society will evolve to the point where the state as we know it today will be abolished". The condition of possibility for the end of political coercion is a revolution in the inner city that frees the soul from fear and restores the primacy of the intelligence of the heart over instrumental reason. In this, Taha is inspired above all by Ibn 'Arabi and the Sufi tradition deeply rooted in Sudanese culture. He also quotes the maxim from the Gospel: «Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand » (Mt 12 :25). In Taha's rhetoric, the second coming of Jesus and Muslim messianic imagery play a central role. For him, the messianic is linked to the fulfilment of the law at the present moment, which is not the end of time, but the instant when it is possible to start something new. In his thought, the messianic goes hand in hand with the deconstruction of nationalist and religious collective identities. This is particularly evident in his 1967 analysis of the Arab-Israeli conflict, where he rethinks the notions of the Holy Land and the chosen people, rejecting the interpretation given to them by Zionism and Arab-Islamic nationalism.