The impasse of modernity: personal agency, divine destiny, and the unpredictability of intimate relationships in Morocco

Following the romantic vicissitudes of Ghizlan, a professional woman in her thirties, this article explores the expectations and unexpected outcomes of love in a rapidly changing Moroccan town. Imagined as a pure and elective union between two individuals, love manifests itself in Ghizlan's lived experience as a dangerous adventure along the thin line between human agency and divine destiny, personal desires and social constraints. In the wake of the Islamic revival, a purified idea of ‘Islamic modernity’ provides the religious imagination and vocabulary with which Ghizlan recomposes the unfulfilled promises of love and discusses recent developments in Morocco. Interweaving love and destiny, Ghizlan's reflections reveal a perspective on agency and (inter)subjectivity that exceeds intentionality, desire, and rational understanding. Highlighting the fundamental roles of human passions and transcendental powers in people's ethical and existential journeys, this article hopes to contribute to an emerging ‘anthropology of ethics and freedom’. It broadens current anthropological debates by interrogating the very meanings of choice, freedom, and responsibility in a world where personal agency meets human powers, divinely preordained futures, and material contingencies.