Food Of Darkness

from laţāyif al-minan of imām ibn áţāyillāh as-sakandari [chapter 3]:

the gnostic [áārif] yāqūt narrated to me that:

a man once invited me and placed food in front of me and i saw darkness upon it; i said to myself that this is forbidden food and hence did not partake anything from it.

thereafter i entered the assembly of shaykh abu'l ábbās [al-mursī] and he said to me [immediately after i sat down]: "among the ignorant ideas of a beginner-sufi [min jahl báađ al-murīdīn] is, when he sees darkness upon food presented to him, he says 'this is ĥarām'.

o poor man! what benefit will your piety and scruplousness give you along with harboring foul suspicion of a fellow muslim? why couldn't you have said [to yourself*]: this is food that Allah ta'ala did not Will for us to eat.

*as the narrator indicates, he did not say it aloud. he just found a way not to eat it, but within himself, he suspected it to be forbidden.

Allah ta'ala knows best.