The Quran

Preface

أَو كَظُلُماتٍ في بَحرٍ لُجِّيٍّ يَغشاهُ مَوجٌ مِن فَوقِهِ مَوجٌ مِن فَوقِهِ سَحابٌ ۚ ظُلُماتٌ بَعضُها فَوقَ بَعضٍ إِذا أَخرَجَ يَدَهُ لَم يَكَد يَراها ۗ وَمَن لَم يَجعَلِ اللَّهُ لَهُ نورًا فَما لَهُ مِن نورٍ

Yusuf Ali

Or (the Unbelievers? state) is like the depths of darkness in a vast deep ocean, overwhelmed with billow topped by billow, topped by (dark) clouds:¹ depths of darkness, one² above another: if a man stretches out his hands, he can hardly see it! for any to whom God giveth not light, there is no light!³

What a graphic picture of darkness is the depths of the Ocean, wave upon wave, and on top of all, dense dark clouds! There is so little light even in ordinary depths of the Ocean that fishes which live there lose their eyes as useless organs. For lines 4-5, I am indebted to Gardiner’s Translation of Ghazari’s Mishkat###
A contrast to “Light upon Light” in 24:35 above.
The true source of Light in the world of Reality is God, and anyone who cuts himself off from the Light is in utter darkness indeed, for it is the negation of the only true Light, and not merely relative darkness, like that which we see, say, in the shadows of moonlight.