Salim
The Omani businessman whose night with a Jinn changes his life.
Salim, played by Omid Abtahi, is an Omani businessman in the American Gods TV series, recurring in the first season and part of the main cast in the second and third. In New York City he meets a taxi driver who is an ifrit, the Jinn; they have a sexual encounter, and the next morning they have exchanged lives. The novel has the same story: the Jinn, an ifrit taxi driver, swaps lives with an Omani businessman.
Quick Facts
- Location
- United States
Lore & Background
Looking for the Jinn, Salim agrees to drive Laura and Mad Sweeney across state lines in his taxi in exchange for Sweeney's help. In the second season he reunites with the Jinn, who is working for Wednesday, and goes with him to find Wednesday's spear, Gungnir. In the third season he joins Laura in her quest for revenge on Wednesday, then finds love with a man named Kai at a motel called The Peacock and parts from Laura peacefully.
Reader's Guide
His scene with the Jinn in the third episode of the first season is a gay love scene; Bryan Fuller said it tells the tale of a man who comes from a country where homosexuality is punishable by death. The third season presents him as a gay Muslim man from Oman who moved to the United States and fell in love with a djinn.
More in Deities & Mortals
Elsewhere in American Gods
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