Examining the Word “Love” in Usul Al-Kafi and Sahih Bokhari

Usul Al-Kafi & Sahih Bukhari books are the reliable sources of Shiite and Sunni narrations to which the followers of these two religions refer about issues in many principles and sub-principles of Islam. One of the important issues about which narrations are mentioned in these two books and also some chapters are dedicated to it is the word "love". The present article has analyzed the content of the word love and its derivatives in these two books. The words and topics extracted from the analysis of the content of the narrations, show that love in Usul Al-Kafi is strongly related to the key concepts of intellect, religion, attributes of God, obedience, piety, cognition and Ahl al-Bayt and that it has several semantic layers of meaning such as the love between God and servant, the love to the Messenger of God and Ahl al-Bayt, and the love of mankind and believers, and the love that is displeasing. Most of the narrations related to love in Usul Al-Kafi book refer to the distance from the love to the world which is ignorance, helplessness and misguidance. But in Sahih Bukhari, love is related only to faith and goodness, and most of the narrations deal with the semantic layers of love, which include the love between God and servant, the love to the Messenger of God and mankind, but there is no mention of the love to Ahl al-Bayt.