The Red Lion and Sun Society (Persian: جمعیت شیر و خورشید سرخ ایران Jam-eiyat Šir o Xoršid Sorx Irân) of Iran was established in 1922 and admitted to the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement in 1923.^[1] However, some report the symbol was introduced at Geneva in 1864^{[2][better source needed]} as a countermeasure to the Red Crescent and the Red Cross used by two of Iran's rivals: the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire, respectively.

In 1980, because of the association of the emblem (Iran's historic Lion and Sun) with the recently deposed Pahlavi dynasty, the newly proclaimed Islamic Republic of Iran replaced the Red Lion and Sun with the Iranian Red Crescent Society, adopting the symbol used by most of the other Muslim-majority countries. Though the Red Lion and Sun has now fallen into disuse, Iran has, in the past, reserved the right to take it up again at any time; the Geneva Conventions continue to recognize it as an official emblem, and that status was confirmed by Protocol III in 2005, even as it added the neutral Red Crystal.