For Shi'a Muslims, the Imam of Time alone can understand the esoteric meaning.
Sufis believe in the purification of the batin by their spiritual guide to assure a zahir that follows Shariat.
Zahir is also the underlying principle of the Ẓāhiriyya, a school of thought in Islamic jurisprudence and theology that relies only on the manifest or apparent meaning of expressions in the Quran and the Sunnah.
According to the "Epistle of the Right Path", a post-Mongol Persian-Ismaili treatise, the zahir (exoteric) form and the batin (esoteric) essence co-exist, in that the zahir (exoteric) form is the manifestation of the batin (esoteric) essence.
[3] Many Ismaili Muslim thinkers have stressed the importance of the balance between the exoteric (ẓāhir) and the esoteric (batin) in the understanding of faith, and have explained that spiritual interpretation (ta’wil) entails elucidating the esoteric meaning (bātin) from the exoteric form (ẓāhir).