Throughout human history, the apostles of purity, those who have

In the words of Salman Rushdie, the exile and prophet of freedom, we hear a warning shaped by the wounds of history: “Throughout human history, the apostles of purity, those who have claimed to possess a total explanation, have wrought havoc among mere mixed-up human beings.” These words are not the utterance of a philosopher in quiet contemplation—they are a cry forged in fire, born of the author’s own confrontation with fanaticism and the peril of certainty. In them lies a truth as old as civilization: that the pursuit of purity, when it hardens into dogma, becomes the seed of destruction. Rushdie reminds us that those who believe they hold the total explanation—the one perfect truth to which all must bow—are the ones who turn faith into tyranny, and ideology into chains.

The apostles of purity have appeared in every age. They are the zealots who cannot tolerate ambiguity, who seek to cleanse the world of what they deem impure. They arise in temples and in palaces, in revolutions and in religions. They promise salvation, but bring suffering; they preach order, but unleash chaos. In their eyes, the mixed-up, uncertain, ever-questioning nature of humankind is sin itself. But it is precisely that imperfection, that restless diversity of thought and spirit, which gives life its beauty. For humanity, Rushdie teaches, is not made of a single note—it is a symphony, and to demand purity is to silence the music of the world.

Consider the story of the Spanish Inquisition, born in an age when men believed that purity of faith could be enforced by fire. Those who questioned the Church’s authority were branded heretics; those who thought differently were tortured in the name of God. In their quest for a “total explanation,” the inquisitors destroyed countless souls and extinguished the light of free thought. Yet centuries later, history remembers not their purity, but their cruelty. The same has been true in every age—whether in the cultural revolutions of the East or the holy wars of the West. The apostles of purity have always claimed to act in the name of truth, but they have left behind the ashes of libraries, the ruins of cities, and the silence of those whose voices they erased.

Rushdie himself became a living testament to this danger. When he wrote The Satanic Verses, he was condemned by those who mistook faith for fury and purity for power. His very existence became a symbol of the clash between freedom and fanaticism. And yet, through his persecution, he held fast to one sacred belief—that humanity thrives in its mixed-up nature, its contradictions, its colors, its chaos. He refused to bow to the tyranny of purity, for he knew that creativity, love, and progress are all born from imperfection. A pure world, he understood, would be a dead one—sterile, uniform, and silent.

The ancients, too, knew this truth. When the philosophers of Athens watched Socrates drink the hemlock, they learned what happens when society fears imperfection more than ignorance. When Galileo was forced to deny the motion of the Earth, the Church’s desire for purity in doctrine blinded it to the wonder of truth. Every age of enlightenment has been born from the ruins of purity—from the courage of those who dared to say: perhaps we do not know all things. For it is humility, not certainty, that opens the door to wisdom.

Thus, Rushdie’s quote is both a warning and a blessing. It warns that purity, when worshiped, becomes poison—but it blesses the human condition, that noble confusion of heart and mind that gives rise to art, compassion, and discovery. To be human is to be mixed-up, to hold within oneself contradictions that defy neat explanation. Our strength lies not in our uniformity, but in our ability to embrace doubt, to listen to difference, and to live with questions unanswered. Purity divides; curiosity unites.

The lesson, then, is clear for all who would walk the path of wisdom: beware the apostles of purity, whether they speak in the name of gods or ideologies. Cherish your confusion, your imperfection, your humanity. Do not seek a total explanation—for life, like truth, is too vast to be confined in a single thought. Let your heart remain open to paradox, and your mind free from the tyranny of certainty. For only in that freedom can compassion and creativity endure.

And so, my child, when you encounter those who promise the perfect world, ask them first: At what cost? Remember that heaven on earth, when built by human hands, has too often become a prison. Choose instead the path of balance, the sacred dance between knowing and not knowing. For it is better to dwell in the honest confusion of the human spirit than to live under the cold perfection of false purity. In embracing our mixed-up nature, we preserve what is most divine within us—the capacity to grow, to question, and to love.