Scouting in Iran was founded by volunteers and established by Sir Mirza Ahmad Aminzadeh in 1925, and formally developed in 1928 as a department of the Ministry of Education, which at the time engendered a lack of public support.

Gradually, Scouting expanded across the country, but was suddenly suppressed when in August 1941 Britain and the USSR invaded Iran, arrested Reza Shah and sent him into exile during World War II.

in October, 1943, an American expert, Mr. Gibson, was invited to Iran to manage Scouting and the Physical Education Organization.

In 1953 Dr. Hossein Banai, recently returned from university in the United States with degrees in Psychology and Physical Education, became the commissioner of the Iran Scout Organization (سازمان پیش آهنگی ایران).

Dr. Banai started the new movement with great enthusiasm and held the first course of Scout leader training for the revived organization.

At the meeting of the International Committee in Athens in August 1958, Manzariyeh (meaning "pleasant prospect") was chosen as the site of an international Scout training center, similar to Kandersteg in Switzerland, and deputy camp chiefs from around the world were invited to staff and run the training courses.

In 1965 the Middle East Rover Moot was held in Iran and recognized with a postage stamp issued July 23, 1965.

The Iranian Scouting uniform of that period consisted of a khaki shirt and trousers: short for summer, long for winter.

These organizations grew for many years and included 20 Scouting campsites in different provinces, until the overthrow of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi in 1979.

[1] The 15th World Jamboree was scheduled to be held in Nishapur, Iran, in July 1979, at the 10 square kilometre Omar Khayyám Scout Park, near the Afghan and Turkmen borders.

The government placed restraints on Scouting during the 1980s, and the wars in which Iran became involved drew away many Scout-age boys and adult leaders for military service.

The members should follow the goals and the methods of the director of the Iranian Scouting Organization, and also the laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran."

The current Iranian Scouting uniform likely has longer shirt sleeves and full-length trousers, in accordance with Islamic edicts.

The ISO emblem, unlike most others in the world, changes every decade to reflect the political and social climate in the country at the moment.