Chapter 13

Freemasonry and Islam

Thierry Zarcone

Introduction

Freemasonry was born in an almost purely Christian society with its ceremo­
nial and rituals heavily influenced by Christian culture and Western esoteri­
cism. Hence, it is not surprising that in spite of the masonic principle of
tolerance, Jews, Muslims, and ‘Pagans’, were not accepted in the Order
([Nogaret] 1742: 14–15). This was the case particularly on the Continent, while
the British and Dutch forms of Freemasonry were relatively open to the Jews.
In 1755, according to the Constitution of the Grand Lodge of France, a person
who was not baptized could not be made a Mason and several contemporary
declarations were written by continental Masons, mainly German and Scan­
dinavian, which underlined the strictly Christian character of the Order
(Beaurepaire 2003). It is surprising that the Catholic Church, as indicated in
the Papal Bulls of 1738 and 1751, idealized the universal tolerance of
Freemasonry and imagined naively that Jews, Muslims, and Pagans were easily
accommodated within the Order. Notwithstanding, we do know some cases of
Muslims, in general merchants, students or diplomats, who were initiated in
England and continental Europe in the eighteenth century, but they were very
few and admitted into the Order under exceptional conditions only. Meanwhile,
the lodges established in the East in the eighteenth century very rarely wel­
comed Muslims. These lodges constituted either a powerful commercial net­
work serving the foreign merchants established in the Empire, or a diplomatic
club for members of the legations (Zarcone 1993: 189–193; Beaurepaire 2006;
Fozdar 2001: 46–49; van der Veur 1976: 4–6; Stevens 1994). Thereafter, in the
nineteenth century, the emergence of liberalism in the West and the increas­
ing settlement in the Muslim world of colonists and foreigners who were Free­
masons led to a reconsideration of the principle of tolerance and of masonic
discrimination (see the chapters “Freemasonry and Eastern Religions” and
“Freemasonry and Colonialism” in this volume for further information).

Muslims in Freemasonry: Colonial Clubs and/or Reformist Circles

Although many lodges were active in the Ottoman Empire, in Egypt, in India
and even in Indonesia in the eighteenth and the first decades of the nineteenth

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2014 | doi 10.1163/9789004273122_014

234 Zarcone

century, it was not until the middle of that century that the number of Muslims
admitted to these lodges started to increase. Two kinds of lodges however must
be distinguished. First, the lodges which were set up in colonial areas, like
British India, French North Africa and the Dutch East Indies often functioned
as social clubs that supported charities, provided entertainment and aimed to
bring together the colonial administrators, the Foreign military, and the well-
to-do colonists (merchants, landholders) with the local aristocratic and upper
class. In general, the goal of this form of colonial Freemasonry was the ‘frater­
nal’ assimilation of the indigenous population. Second, the lodges which were
started in non colonised areas, such as the Ottoman Empire including its Arabic
provinces and Egypt, were rather reformist groups composed of foreign diplo­
mats, merchants and of local senior civil servants, literati and well-to-do men.
Regarding the masonic bodies operating in Muslim lands, there is a distinc­
tion between the revolutionary French and Italian Freemasonry and the British
masonic tradition with its public spirit of cooperation. These masonic bodies
were rivals though they cultivated fraternal relations. But after 1877, the Grand
Orient of France, in order to open its lodges to freethinkers and atheists,
decided to remove the obligation to profess belief in the Great Architect of the
Universe and the immortality of the soul. Consequently, the United Grand
Lodge of England declared the Grand Orient of France irregular. This dogmatic
disagreement had a great impact on the Muslim Freemasons who were, for the
most part, wary of an irreligious and even atheist form of Freemasonry. This
led to a major partition between Muslim Freemasons that is still very influen­
tial to this day.

Mixed-Race Lodges in British India and in the Dutch East Indies

It is worth noting that the masonic lodges in general provided a training

ground for Muslims in democratic and constitutional government through the
use of by-laws and constitutions, election of officers by universal suffrage, and
so on. The lodge was also a neutral ground for various ethnic groups and mem­
bers of different religions to meet and fraternize: colonizers and native popu­
lations in India and in North-Africa; Westerners and locals in the Ottoman
Empire, and also among the ethnic and religious minorities of these areas:
Jews, Christians and Muslims in Turkey and in the Middle East; Hindus,
Zoroastrians and Muslims in India; Muslims and Chinese in the Dutch East
Indies. On the other hand, secret societies have fascinated the Muslims and
this may be one explanation for the success of Freemasonry among them—the
other being its social and political character. D.F. Wadia wrote, in 1912, that in