Abstract Does endorsing an Islamist agenda protect a candidate involved in corruption from negative voter evaluations? The corruption literature suggests that voter reactions to corruption are not unbiased and as such Islamist agendas could potentially mitigate the negative effects of a corruption scandal, especially in religious societies. The political Islam literature suggests that endorsing an Islamist agenda would not shield corrupt politicians from negative reactions of the voters. We directly answer this question through 2 nationally representative survey experiments in the world’s most populous Muslim democracy Indonesia. Our findings are 2-fold. First, Islamist agendas, in general, have only little effects on voter support for a candidate. Second, voters punish corrupt candidates equally, regardless whether or not they endorse an Islamist agenda.