Omid Payrow Shabani is a Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Guelph. In general, he has been interested in bridging the gap between the theoretical framework of critical theorists and liberal nationalists in order to be able to address concrete questions of policy making in multicultural societies from the normative perspective of constitutional patriotism. Currently, Dr. Shabani has become interested the ascending role of religion in politics and what it implies for basic tenets of liberalism like the state/church separation principle and the idea of public reason. In this connection he is interested in what form this problematic has taken in the EU's member-states like France and Germany.