In the 1880s Baha’i assemblies included mullas, and antagonism to Babis and Baha’is as heretics did not prevent interaction between Shi’a and alternative views.

The emergence of the Babi movement in the 1840s as an explicitly radical (and anti-‘ulama) alternative, proclaiming a revolutionary and messianic revelation and a break with the Shi’a past, did meet open confrontation and condemnation from the religious leadership, leaving the term ‘Babi’ as a lasting term of abuse for heresy, innovation and unbelief. However, it is notable that Shi’a leaders moved cautiously and gradually to outright condemnation, acting in conjunction with secular authorities, and that senior ‘ulama were divided from lower-ranking mullas and tullab, numbers of whom were attracted to the new movement. Following a period of confrontation and persecution and the expulsion of prominent Babis from Iran in the 1850s, the continuation of the movement rested on the use of taqiyeh (concealment) by sympathisers, which preserved overlaps between members of the ‘ulama and Babi or their successor Baha’i and Azali groups. In the 1880s Baha’i assemblies included mullas, and antagonism to Babis and Baha’is as heretics did not prevent interaction between Shi’a and alternative views. The drive to monopolise and define conformity/‘orthodoxy’ co-existed with pragmatic adaptability and shifting ideological boundaries, rather than establishing binary oppositions between ‘permissive’ and ‘dogmatic’ versions of belief and practice.

(Religion, Culture and Politics in Iran - From the Qajars to Khomeini by Joanna de Groot)