Freemasonry (Ar. māsūniyya , Tk. masonluk , farmasonluk , Pers. frāmāsūnrī ), also known as masonry, is a worldwide initiatic society that became established in much of the Muslim world during the nineteenth century but is found today only in in such relatively liberal countries as Turkey, Lebanon and Morocco. While the principles of freemasonry are public, details of rituals are secret, as is information concerning membership, although secret recognition signs allow freemasons to identify one another. There is no generally accepted characterization of freemasonry, but there is some agreement that it is a