Each and every soul has to pass over al-Sirat al-Mustaqeem ...

Each and every soul has to pass over al-Sirat al-Mustaqeem , the straight path over hell, a fire more intense in heat than boiling molten brass, with seven bridges over it the length of each one of which is three thousand years: one thousand to vertically ascend, one thousand to horizontally cross, and one thousand to descend. It is thinner than a human hair, more sharp than the sharpest sword, and darker than the darkest night inside a tunnel.

Each bridge has seven branches, and each branch is like a long lance with sharp teeth: each servant of Allah will be confined on each and every one of them and be asked about all the injunctions the Almighty had required him to perform during his life on this planet. In the first of such stops he will be asked about belief and conviction, about shirk and hypocrisy.

In the second he will be asked about prayers, what they contain, how to perform them, and whether he performed them properly and on time. In the third he will be asked about zakat , its types, and whether he paid it or not. And it is in the fourth one that he will be asked about the fast... It is then that he will realize whether he upheld this important obligation or not, whether he offered charity or not, and whether he regretted and repented during the month of Ramadhan or not.

In the fifth he will be asked about the pilgrimage and ‘umra , why he did not perform them, or why he failed to perform them properly, and how they are to be performed. In the sixth he will be asked about wudu (ablution) and ghusul , how he performed them, which one is compulsory and which one is optional. Finally, in the seventh, he will be asked about how kind he was to his parents and kin, and whether he did injustice to any human being.

In the absence of sufficient optional good deeds such as offering charity, helping a needy Muslim, performing optional prayers or fasts..., etc., if one gives the wrong answer to any question in any of these stops, he will fall into the pit of hell underneath..., as Abdel-Jabbar al-Rubay’I tells us in his book Al-Tathkira fi ahwal al-mawt wal akhira , having collected such details from various books of hadith and Sunnah . He adds saying, on p.

130, that the bridges will be shaken by the weight of crossing people who will climb on top of one another, causing these bridges to move like a ship tossed by a wind storm in the midst of the sea. al-Sirat separates Paradise from hell.