In Islamic eschatology, every person must cross al-Sirāt, the bridge over hellfire, on Judgment Day.
Islamic descriptions portray al-Sirāt as extremely narrow and difficult to cross. The righteous pass over it safely, while people burdened by disbelief or wrongdoing may fall into Jahannam, the Islamic hell. Details differ among Islamic theological and devotional traditions, so descriptions of its exact physical nature should not be treated as identical everywhere.
Al-Sirāt is part of a wider sequence of final events that includes resurrection, judgment, the weighing of deeds, and entry into paradise or hell. It is often confused with the mīzān, which is the scale or balance associated with judgment, and with barzakh, the intermediate state between death and resurrection.
The word sirāt is related to a path or way. In Islamic thought, the eschatological bridge also echoes the Qur’anic idea of a straight path, though the bridge itself is primarily developed through hadith and later Islamic theological literature.