Abdul Baha says about the Babi and Baha'i communities and their teachings

ʿAbd al-Bahāʾ stressed even more than did his father the contrast between the Bābī and Bahāʾī communities and their teachings. In one passage, having referred to the Bahāʾī obligation to associate with all men in a spirit of love, he goes on to say that ‘this is one of the religious duties of the Bahāʾī community, not of the Bayānīs (i.e. Bābīs). The aim of the latter is the opposite of this. For the Bahāʾīs have as their sacred book the Kitāb-i aqdas (sic), which commands us thus, whereas the book of laws of the Bayānīs is the Bayān, which is a direct contrast to the Kitāb-i aqdas in these matters. The Bahāʾīs, however, regard the Kitāb-i aqdas as abrogating the Bayān, and say that in the Qurʾān and the Bayān there is the decree of opposing other religions, whereas the Kitāb-i aqdas abrogates all these laws’. In a letter apparently addressed to the Bahāʾīs of either Baghdad or Shīrāz (madīnat Allāh), he puts forward the view that, in every religious dispensation, a particular teaching was given special emphasis. Thus, in the time of Moses, obedience and submission to God were stressed; in the days of Jesus, moral behaviour, friendship, harmony, and turning the other cheek; and, in the dispensation of Muḥammad, the smashing of idols and the prohibition of the worship of false gods. In the days of the Bāb, he goes on, ‘the decree of the Bayān was the striking of necks, the burning of books and papers, the destruction of shrines, and the universal slaughter of all save those who believed and were faithful’. By way of contrast, he says, the emphasis in the Bahāʾī dispensation is upon compassion, mercy, association with all peoples, trustworthiness towards all men, and the unification of mankind.

(The Messiah of Shiraz - Studies in Early and Middle Babism by Denis Martin MacEoin)