Abī al-Jaʿd, who said:

“Hell has three causeways: one on which the trust (amānah) is stationed; one on which the bond of kinship (raḥim) is stationed; and a third over which Allah Himself presides—it is the ambush. Whoever escapes the first two will not escape this one.”

He then recited, “Surely your Lord is ever on the lookout” (al-Fajr 89:14).

ʿUbayd Allah ibn al-ʿAyzar said: “On the Day of Resurrection the ṣirāṭ will be stretched between the trust and the womb-kin. A herald will call out, ‘Let whoever discharged the trust and maintained the tie of kinship advance in safety, without fear.’” Reported by Ibn Abī al-Dunyā.

Al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn ʿAsākir, in the biography of al-Fuḍayl ibn ʿIyāḍ, said: “It has reached me that the ṣirāṭ spans a journey of fifteen thousand years—five thousand ascending, five thousand level across its back, and five thousand descending. It is finer than a hair and sharper than a sword, stretched across Hell; none crosses it save every lean, emaciated soul who feared Allah, Glorified and Exalted.” At that al-Fuḍayl (may Allah have mercy on him) would weep.

Ibn Abī al-Dunyā also said: Muḥammad ibn Idrīs narrated to us; Abū Tawbah al-Rabīʿ ibn Nāfiʿ al-Ḥalabī narrated to us; Muʿāwiyah ibn Sallām narrated to us, from his brother Zayd ibn Sallām, who said that he heard Abū Sallām say: ʿAbd al-Raḥmān narrated to me, saying that a man of Kindah told him:

I entered upon ʿĀʾishah while a curtain separated us. I said, “There is a question within me for which I have found no one to give me relief.”

She asked, “Who are you?”

I replied, “From Kindah.”

She said, “From which military district?”

I answered, “From the people of Ḥimṣ.”

She asked, “What is your need?”

I said, “Did the Messenger of Allah ﷺ tell you that there will come a moment on the Day of Resurrection when he will have no power of intercession for anyone?”

She said, “Yes. I asked him about that while he and I were wrapped in one covering, and he replied:

‘Yes—when the ṣirāṭ is laid down I shall possess nothing for anyone until I know where I myself will be taken; and when faces whiten and faces blacken, until I see what is done with me; and at the bridge when it becomes razor-sharp and fiercely hot.’”

I asked, “What does ‘razor-sharp and fiercely hot’ mean?” He ﷺ said:

“It becomes as sharp as the blade of a sword and as scorching as a burning coal. As for the believer, he will cross it and be unharmed; but the hypocrite will cling to it, and when he reaches its middle the heat will burn his feet. He will fling his hands toward them—have you ever seen a barefoot runner who is pierced by a thorn so deeply it almost passes through both feet? That is how he will throw his hands and head down to his feet. Then the warders will strike him with a hook in his forelock and his feet and hurl him into Hell, and he will fall therein for a span of fifty years.”

I asked, “Does a man not become heavier?”

She answered, “Rather, he becomes as heavy as ten fat she-camels.” (1) On that Day, “the criminals will be recognized by their marks, and they will be seized by the forelocks and the feet” (al-Raḥmān 55:41). This is a strange report.

Section

Allah the Exalted says:

“By your Lord, We will surely gather them and the devils; then We shall bring them, crouching, around Hell (68); then We shall pluck from each…”