As militant Islam does its level best to discredit the religion, it's important to remember that there are other voices within the faith. One such is the Sufis, a branch of Islamic mystics who live islam [submission], iman [faith] and ishan [awareness of G-d, "to act beautifully"]. Every Saturday, therefore, we spend some time with the Sufis and their 'crazy wisdom'. The concept of a mystical door recurs frequently in Rumi's writings. Sometimes it appears as a symbol of access to the divine:

One went to the door of the Beloved and knocked. A voice asked, 'Who is there?' He answered, 'It is I.' The voice said, 'There is no room for Me and Thee.' The door was shut. After a year of solitude and deprivation he returned and knocked. A voice from within asked, 'Who is there?' The man said, 'It is Thee.' The door was opened for him.

And sometimes it appears as a symbol of that which impedes such access:

I have lived on the lip of insanity knocking on the door. It opens. I have been knocking from the inside.

Both Rumi and Rabia asked whether the door had ever been closed at all, a theme which appears much later, and much further away, in (of all places) Franz Kafka's Before the Law. What is the door? Is it open? Is it closed?