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Castor (<em>Ricinus communis</em> L.) is one of the most ancient medicinal oil crops in the world. It has been vastly distributed in different parts of Iran. In the present study, the inter simple sequence repeat (ISSR) markers were used to evaluate the molecular genetic diversity among and within 12 castor accessions collected from 7 regions of Iran. Totally, 16 ISSR primers amplified 166 loci, of which 116 loci (69.89 %) were polymorph, indicating high genetic variability in castor germplasm. An accession-specific ISSR band was detected in ‘80-29’accession. Genetic distance among accessions ranged from 0.2 to 0.056. Analysis of molecular variance revealed a higher level of genetic variation within (80%) than between (20%) accessions. A model-based Bayesian approach subdivided 60 genotypes from 12 accessions into 6 subgroups. UPGMA dendrogram based on Nei’s genetic distance classified 12 accessions into 4 groups. The result indicates that there was no association between geographical origin and ISSR patterns. The results suggest that ISSR technique is a useful tool for studying genetic diversity in castor germplasm.