visited. So when fellow Baha'i, Mrs. Mary Walker caught up with him at the International Baha'i Centre in Israel last year, she invited him to visit her island home.

For the past two weeks, Mr. and Mrs. Yazdi have been enjoying Mrs. Walker's hospitality, and learning more about the Baha'i community in Bermuda.

The Baha'i's were established here about 40 years ago. Now with a following of around six million spread through 165 countries, the Baha'i faith is the most widely spread throughout the world after Christianity. In the last two years alone, it is estimated that its ranks have swelled by two million.

While this newest of the major international faiths has no rulers in the traditional manner of priests, monks or imams, it would be fair to say that Mr. Yazdi is, at least, an unofficial leader. Since serving for 15 years at the Haifa teaching headquarters, Mr. Yazdi has visited about 70 countries.

Before that, he had spent 21 years in Africa and then went on to work in another 19 countries before returning to Israel.

"We have no paid missionaries,'' he declared and went on to explain that "pioneers'' go to various countries around the world. "We have to pay our own way, and we attract people to our faith by the example of our own work. In Africa, I founded three companies. I happen to be an engineer, but I know of one lady Baha'i, for instance, who started a laundry. We have no churches.

Work is considered as worship. In other words, instead of spending so much of our time praying and meditating, we are told to spend our time helping in the community, serving humanity with whatever gifts we have been given.'' The years of constant travel seem to have settled gently upon this sprightly 83-year old ambassador, who like the founder of his faith, is of Iranian parentage.

"I'm planning to visit at least another 20 countries before I get old,'' he proclaims with an impish grin. "I have retired six times already! Can you imagine a healthy person sitting here doing nothing -- is that a life?'' Probably not, for a man such as Aziz Yazdi, whose commitment to his religion has led to more than a normal share of excitement and intrigue.

He spent World War I in Damascus, Syria ("my brother was Lawrence of Arabia's interpreter'') and in the Second World War, he was in Persia (as he refers to Iran) and got caught up in the fracas of US, British and Russian forces struggling for supremacy against the Axis powers.

Back in the 1930s, he had led a quiet life as an engineer for HMV, working on the first TV sets in the UK. But at the request of the head of British Petroleum, he took up an engineering post in the oil-fields of Iran.

There he met his wife and in 1934, they were married, even though Baha'i marriages were not recognised as being legal. More trouble came when it was discovered he had entered `Baha'i' as his religion on official Iranian forms instead of `Moslem'.

"I was just on the verge of being court-marshalled and shot when, luckily for me, the Shah intervened and said, `No, don't shoot him. We need engineers!'' Mr. Yazdi was in Kenya during the Mau Mau uprising and said: "I was there to spread the Baha'i faith and never had any trouble from them. There was another Baha'i there, an Englishman, and we were the only whites who didn't carry guns around. I heard afterwards that the Mau Mau had left us alone as they said we were not after their blood. By the time my wife and I left Kenya, there were more than 70,000 Baha'is.'' Asked why he thought the Baha'i religion had spread so widely and rapidly in the 150 years since its founding, Mr. Yazdi smiled and said: "Because we have no clergy.'' He explained that each community -- whether it is a small place like Bermuda, or large, like the US -- elects (by secret ballot) nine volunteers to serve as leaders for one year. From that, the national assemblies elect a Universal House of Justice of nine representatives that sits for five years.

Democracy is a key element in the Baha'i faith, he said.

"We believe in one God, and one race on earth. We have no political interests or ambitions and we believe that science and religion go hand in hand. The Baha'i faith wants man to be elevated spiritually and we believe that approximately every thousand years, a special teacher is sent, such as Buddha, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed and finally, Baha'u'llah.'' The founder of the Baha'is, Baha'u'llah, born into a wealthy Persian family in 1817, gave up his worldly goods and became known as `Father of the Poor'.

Prison and torture at the hands of the authorities failed to quell his message of personal and social regeneration and his place of exile and imprisonment on the coast of the Holy Land has since become the headquarters of the followers of his faith.

Mr. Yazdi, pointing out that fellow Baha'is are still persecuted by the Islamic fundamentalist regime in Iran, just as they had been in the Soviet Union, said that he was greatly encouraged by the Baha'i's' involvement with the United Nations. He added: "Also, we are proud of our record on the environment. We were the only non-governmental agency at the Earth Summit in Brazil. The central theme of our message is that humanity is one single race in a global society.'' BAHA'I ENVOYS -- Mr. and Mrs. Aziz Yazdi of Vancouver have added Bermuda to the long list of countries visited by them in Mr. Yazdi's capacity as a `pioneer' of the Baha'i faith.