A history before the revolution

Iran’s Masonic history is often overshadowed by the revolution of 1979 and the political conflicts that followed. The surviving record reaches much further back. For March’s education, it offers a way to consider how a fraternity maintains its identity when its members can no longer gather safely in their own country.

According to Encyclopaedia Iranica, Lodge Bidari, founded on April 21, 1908, was the first lodge in Persia affiliated with a European grand lodge, the Grand Orient de France. Bidari’s Grand Orient affiliation was distinct from the Anglo-American affiliations through which later Iranian lodges developed.¹

An organized fraternity

Iranica’s historical chronology records the formation of the Grand Lodge of Iran in 1969, with Ja’far Sharif-Emami as Grand Master. It reports twenty-seven lodges and about seven hundred members at that point. These are figures for the institution at its formation, rather than a count of all Iranian Masons across different periods and affiliations.²

By then the fraternity had a formal organization of constituent lodges and officers. Its growth took place within the politics of pre-revolutionary Iran, although a membership figure cannot tell us why each man joined or what opinions he held.

The break in 1979

The Grand Lodge of California’s public account states that Freemasonry has been banned in Iran since the 1979 revolution. Iranica likewise describes the suppression of Masonic activity after the revolution. The familiar arrangements of lodge life could no longer be taken for granted.^{1, 4}

The consequences of such a prohibition extend beyond losing access to a meeting room. An association depends on people being able to assemble, keep records, identify its officers and pass responsibilities to their successors. When those activities become impossible at home, members who leave must decide what can be preserved and how they can continue together.

Rebuilding in exile

Iranica records that seventeen Past Masters of Persian lodges petitioned in November 1982 to continue their fraternity abroad. Their request was accepted, and their Grand Committee met at the Temple of the Grand Lodge of New York on December 22, 1982. On March 26, 1985, the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts approved Masonic activities by the Grand Lodge of Iran in Exile in Boston. Its first meeting followed there on May 3, 1986.³

Years separated the petition from the first meeting. During that time, members had to establish leadership, obtain sponsorship and secure a place to gather. Continuing the fraternity abroad depended on those arrangements and the participation of men who had belonged to its former lodges.

The Grand Lodge of California now identifies the Grand Lodge of Iran in Exile as headquartered in Los Angeles, with lodges in several U.S. states. Its timeline also records that the Iranian body joined the Grand Lodge of California and the Prince Hall Grand Lodge of California as cohosts of the World Conference of Grand Masters in San Francisco on November 18, 2015.^{4, 5}

The freedom to meet

For readers who can practice Freemasonry openly, this history gives a concrete reason for gratitude. The ability to announce a meeting, maintain a lodge library or welcome a visitor rests partly on freedoms that are easy to overlook when they have always been available.

It also suggests responsibilities close to home. Accurate minutes, preserved correspondence and properly transferred records can seem routine until an institution loses them. Helping a Brother settle into a new community, listening to his experience and making room for him in its work are equally practical acts of fellowship.

The Iranian Masons who organized in exile preserved an association they could no longer maintain at home. Their experience gives particular weight to freedoms we often regard as ordinary, and to the patient work required to keep a fraternity together.