For instance can we say ذنب العظیم or عظام الذنب or اعظم الاذناب. I looked through the Qur'an, and ذنب has always been used alone. You would be very kind to provide a reference for your response if you can!
Can you further explain why it's not wrong. I have a friend who thinks it is wrong simply because it doesn't appear in the Qur'an. I'm looking in to see what the grammatical explanation is.
On the meaning of ذَنْب
الذنب a-Dhanb/a-Zanb in Arabic language refers to anything or any act that will have a consequence (punishment for instance) it also refers to a repeated wrongdoing. While for example الإثم al-Ithm refers to anything that hinders or delays thawab (rewards). While in the shari'a definition both are the same. Imam al-Qurtobi said:
But whoever earns an offense or a sin ... (4:111-112)
وَمَنْ يَكْسِبْ خَطِيئَةً أَوْ إِثْماً
In the following I'm translating from Arabic, these translations are of my own take them carefully
يكسب إثما أي ذنبا فإنما يكسبه على نفسه أي عاقبته عائدة عليه .
(earns an offense يكسب إثما) means a sin ذنب (only earns it against himselfفإنما يكسبه على نفسه) means the consequences of it will return to him (he must deal with them and will be judged on them)
...
ومن يكسب خطيئة أو إثما قيل : هما بمعنى واحد كرر لاختلاف اللفظ تأكيدا .
(But whoever earns an offense or a sin) it was said the meaning is the same and the repetition is in the difference of wording and to emphasize the meaning.وقال الطبري : إنما فرق بين الخطيئة والإثم أن الخطيئة تكون عن عمد وعن غير عمد ، والإثم لا يكون إلا عن عمد .
At-Tabari said: the difference between al-Khatiy'ah الخطيئة the fault and al-Ithm الإثم the wrongdoing is that the fault can be made by intention and without intention while the wrongdoing can't be done except with intention.وقيل : الخطيئة ما لم تتعمده خاصة كالقتل بالخطأ . وقيل : الخطيئة الصغيرة ، والإثم الكبيرة.
And it was said: the fault is what you didn't do intentionally especially like killing by accident. And it was said the fault is the minor sin and the wrongdoing the major sin.
Great sin in Arabic
First the construct and word combinations you have chosen are wrong:
dhanb (or zanb) or sin in Arabic is ذَنْب or الذنب The sin (singular) and ذنوب or الذنوب(plural) in combination with great عظيم it can correctly only appear as ذنب عظيم or الذنب العظيم for the singular version and plural version and ذٌنوبٌ عظيمة and الذٌنوبٌ العظيمة or ذٌنوبٌ عظام and الذٌنوبٌ العظام as great in Arabic has two plurals. Note that in the sunnah you may find a word combination saying the worst sins أكبر الذنوب or أعظم الذنوب see for example in Sahih al-Bukhari (here, here and here) while in the qur'an no such combination/construct (even in the correct variation) in the Qur'an can be found.
Also note that الأذناب is the plural of tail of which the singular is written similarly to that of sin, but it is spelled dhanab (or zanab) ذَنَب.
When sin is mentioned in the Qur'an
Now you may ask why doesn't the Qur'an use this word combination? Before addressing this I'd like to display the different occurrences of the word sin (in singular and plural in the Qur'an):
The word sin appears 29 times in the Qur'an -at least these are the occurrences I could find I've read in summary they are 35 and there are 17 synonyms of the word sin in the Qur'an according to this article and 18 according to this article both in Arabic-.
And it appears mostly as referring to oneself or somebody else. The fact that there's a reference here in Arabic doesn't linguistically allow to add an attribute. So in these examples we would see combinations such as our sin, your sin, her/his sin etc. in relation to asking for forgiveness and repentance in verses such as:
It also appears as: sin ذنب, the sin الذنب, sins ذونب, the sins الذونب. In a context where it means sins in general, so an attribution such as great, major, minor, big etc. is not necessary to add it:
Finally note that in verse (51:59) the word portion ذَنُوب appears twice don't confound it with sin!
Does not using the combination big/great sin(s) in the Qur'an mean it is incorrect?
From what we have seen earlier in the Qur'an the word sin has been used mostly in two ways either to refer to a sin or sins in general, in this case adding an attribute like big/great etc. doesn't make much sense especially if we claim that the Qur'an is a divine book it shouldn't be redundant and including combinations that are unnecessary. The other way is to refer to sins in general and there adding attributes doesn't make sin.
Let's just check the Qur'an about some sins and how the Qur'an expresses them:
They ask you about wine and gambling. Say, "In them is great sin and [yet, some] benefit for people. ... (2:219)
Here the Qur'an used a big wrongdoing/sin إِثْمٌ كَبِيرٌ which is a construct as described above we could use ذنب instead of its synonym إثم, but Allah knows best. We may consider for example the fact that they waste our time and money so they delay rewards as stated above.
Another synonym of ذنب is also used with an attribute in
And they used to persist in the great violation, (56:46)
Here الْحِنْثِ الْعَظِيم the great deviation to the wrong is a similar construct as described above. Here ذنب could be used instead hinth حِنْث, but wouldn't express the matter strong enough.
And a third example of a synonym of ذنب with an attribution can be found in
... And do not consume their properties into your own. Indeed, that is ever a great sin. (4:2)
Here حُوباً كَبيرا expresses the greatness of the sin. حُوب here expresses a wrongdoing as it does in the du'a see for example in Jami' at-Tirmidhi:
... رَبِّ تَقَبَّلْ تَوْبَتِي وَاغْسِلْ حَوْبَتِي وَأَجِبْ دَعْوَتِي ...
transliteration ... taqabbal tawbatī, waghsil ḥawbatī, wa ajib da`watī, ...
translation ... My Lord, accept my repentance, wash my sin, answer my call, ...
I hope from the examples above it is clear that the fact that the Qur'an never used one of the combinations or constructs: ذنب عظيم or الذنب العظيم or ذٌنوبٌ عظيمة or الذٌنوبٌ العظيمة or ذٌنوبٌ عظام or الذٌنوبٌ العظام.
Actually doesn't mean that it is wrong it just means that in the few cases where a sin had an attribution a better synonym was used.
