Sallah Mohammed Faisel el-Kahir () is a fictional character played by Welsh actor John Rhys-Davies in three of the Indiana Jones films: Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, as well as the upcoming Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, the final film of the series. He also appears in various comics and novels, and is featured in the Disney theme park attractions, the Indiana Jones Adventure and The Great Movie Ride. Character Sallah is a hefty, bearded Egyptian excavator. He lives in Cairo and is a close friend of Indiana Jones. He is a dedicated family man with a wife named Fayah and nine children, all of whom seem to have a fondness for Indiana (at one point they all surround him to save him from a group of Egyptian collaborators and SD agents who have their guns drawn on him). Sallah is portrayed in Raiders of the Lost Ark as being jovial, good-natured, and occasionally cowardly (when seeing numerous snakes inside the Well of Souls, the room that houses the Ark of the Covenant, he suggests to Indiana, "You go first."), although unlike Indy, Sallah is not afraid of snakes. His "original" self often sings, as depicted when the old imam indirectly reveals that the Nazis are digging in the wrong spot or when Indy and Marion leave Egypt on the Bantu Wind. Like Marcus Brody, Sallah's portrayal in The Last Crusade has changed into a bumbling stereotype who for example, calls a tank a "steel beast". He seems to be extremely strong, although he is apparently unaware of his enormous strength. He has a strong baritone voice and he seems to have an affinity for Gilbert and Sullivan. He is often seen singing tunes from H.M.S. Pinafore when he is in a good mood. In Raiders, he is mostly seen wearing a turban (perhaps to blend in with the other diggers working for the Nazis), and in Last Crusade, he is seen wearing a fez. The character was also a favorite role of Rhys-Davies, who spoke of trying to convince Spielberg to include the character in another film by citing it as the "common factor" driving the success of the first and third films. Nonetheless, he declined an offer to reprise the role in a cameo in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, feeling that the character deserved