During a meeting at the Governor’s House in Karachi with renowned international scholar Dr Zakir Naik, prominent Pakistani actress Yashma Gill posed a question.

Dr Naik, who is currently visiting Pakistan, delivered a lecture at the Sindh Governor’s House on the evening of October 5, to a large audience.

The lecture, titled “What is the Purpose of Our Lives?” was followed by a question-and-answer session.

Before asking her question, Yashma Gill shared that she had strayed from Islam but was drawn back to the faith after listening to Dr Naik’s teachings.

Yashma Gill’s first question to Dr Naik was about free will in the context of predestination: “If God has already written our destiny, what power of choice do we have?” She elaborated, asking who is responsible if a person does right or wrong, given that destiny is predetermined.

In response, Dr Naik explained that God knows the unseen future; He knows what actions a person will take, whether good or bad.

He clarified that humans don’t do what God has written in their destiny; rather, God writes down what the human will do, because God knows what choices the person will make.

Dr Naik illustrated this with an example of a person standing at a crossroads with four paths. God writes in that person’s destiny the path the person chooses at that moment based on their own decision—the path wasn’t chosen by God, but by the person themselves.