The Bridge

The Bridge

The Bridge is true. It is a wide, extended bridge over Hell.  All of the creations will come to it.  Among them are those who will come to it and enter Hell, and those are the blasphemers and some of the sinful Muslims; they slip from the Bridge and fall into Hell. Also among them [the creations] are those who will come to it by passing over it in its air. Among them are those who pass by it with the speed of a lightning bolt, and among them are those who pass by it with the speed of a blink of an eye, and all of this is taken by its apparent meaning with no other explanation.

One of its edges is at the transformed earth, and the other is at what is close to Paradise.  It is narrated about its description that it is slippery, and among what was narrated about it is that it is sharper than a sword and thinner than a hair, like what Muslim narrated from Abu Sa^id Al-Khudriyy. He said, “It reached me that it is thinner than a hair and sharper than a sword.” That did not come as a hadith elevated up to the Prophet, and the apparent meaning of this is not intended; instead, it is wide. It is only meant by that that its danger is great, for the ease of passing it or its difficulty is measured by the obedience and the sins, and no one knows the limits of that except Allah.  It came in the authentic hadith that their deeds will make them run over the bridge; it means that their deeds will be the power of their stride.