Mohammed Faisel el-Kahir. Sallah reappeared in the ninth and twelfth Bantam Books novels set before the films: in 1933 Sallah helped Indiana find the philosopher's stone, and the following year he provides sanctuary for Jones on his way to the Great Sphinx of Giza. Rhys-Davies expressed interest in reprising the role for a planned fifth Indiana Jones film. Sallah's appearance in the film was confirmed at the D23 Expo in September 2022, with Rhys-Davies reprising the role. Concept and creation The script specified Sallah as a thin 5'2" Bedouin, while Steven Spielberg envisioned him as "a small creature from the Star Wars cantina in an earthbound adventure film". He offered the role to Danny DeVito, who passed because of his commitment to Taxi. Spielberg saw John Rhys-Davies in Shōgun, and changed the role accordingly, advising the actor portray Sallah as a cross between his role in Shōgun and Falstaff. Kevork Malikyan, who played Kazim in Last Crusade, also expressed interest in the role, but a traffic jam caused him to miss his audition. Rhys-Davies described having substantial creative freedom to improvise lines and other aspects of the character in the first film, but with opportunities for improvisation reduced in the second film due to the sharper focus of the story on the father-son dynamic between the main characters, and Spielberg's increasing maturity as a filmmaker. When Davies reprised his role for Last Crusade, he imagined Sallah had become richer since Raiders, leaving excavation in favor of selling antiques. He wanted to convey that Sallah "has gotten older and a little fatter. This time, we see him without the appurtenances of his wife and children. He's a little more resolute now, and he's more ready to have a physical go at the Germans himself. But other than that, he's still the same old Sallah". There are two scenes deleted during filming of Raiders of the Lost Ark featuring Sallah. One is an extension of the scene where Sallah loses the rope into the map room, after two Nazi soldiers demand help from him in freeing their truck from the sand. The entire scene also involved several Nazi soldiers demanding to be served water, while Sallah panics and spills water on their uniforms. The scene was supposed to have smoke in the background, but tires used in the scene made it too dark. Spielberg cut the scene to avoid spending half a