Tell me about Freemasonry in Persian

No lodges were constituted in Persia by the Grand Lodge of England, although Sir Gore Ouseley, Ambassador to the Shah of Persia in 1810, was appointed Provincial Grand Master for that country 1. The Grand Orient of France did, however, warrant a lodge at Teheran named Le Réveil de l'Iran (The Awakening of Persia) 1. A lodge in Teheran later included many native Persian members 1.

Prominent Persians were initiated into the Craft while serving abroad. Askeri Khan, Ambassador of the Shah to France, was initiated in Paris in 1808 by the Mother Lodge of the Philosophic Scottish Rite, presenting his Damascus sabre to the lodge upon his admission 1. Mirza Abul Hassan Khan was initiated in 1810 1. By 1873, a Persian Freemason examining into a Berlin lodge claimed that nearly all members of the Persian Court belonged to the Order 1.

Persians who had heard of the institution referred to the Freemasons' Hall in London as the Feramoosh Khoneh, regarding it with mystery as a place where vast wisdom might be gained in a single day 1.

A high-degree system known as the Persian Philosophical Rite was founded at Erzerum in 1818 and introduced into France in 1819 1. In the Scottish Rite tradition, this system comprised seven degrees—including Listening Apprentice, Master or Knight of the Sun, and Venerable Grand Elect—though it attracted few members and soon became extinct 1.