Salman the Persian or Salmān al-Fārsī (Arabic: سلمان الفارسي‎ Salman al-Farsi; in Persian: روزبه‎ Rouzbeh) was one of Muhammad's companions.

During some of his later meetings with the other Sahabah, he was referred to as Abu Abdullah ("Father of Abdullah").

Salman the Persian was born either in the city of Kazerun in Fars Province, or Isfahan in Isfahan Province, Iran.

It was Salman who came up with the idea of digging a great trench around the city of Medina to defend the city and its people from the army of 10,000 non-Muslims of Arabia. Muhammad and his companions agreed and accepted Salman's plan because it was safer and there would be a better chance that the non-Muslim army of Arabia would have a larger number of casualties. Salman came up with the idea from remembering the same thing happening in Persia; when the Persians learned that their enemies planned to invade their territory, they dug a trench around them to be safe. The attack that the Muslims had expected, is known as the Battle of the Trench.

The Persian Gulf War (2 August 1990 – 28 February 1991), codenamed Operation Desert Storm (17 January 1991 – 28 February 1991) commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a UN-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.

The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf War, Gulf War I, or the Iraq War, before the term "Iraq War" became identified instead with the 2003 Iraq War (also referred to in the U.S. as "Operation Iraqi Freedom").

The invasion of Kuwait by Iraqi troops that began 2 August 1990 was met with international condemnation, and brought immediate economic sanctions against Iraq by members of the UN Security Council. U.S. President George H. W. Bush deployed American forces into Saudi Arabia, and urged other countries to send their own forces to the scene. An array of nations joined the coalition. The great majority of the military forces in the coalition were from the United States, with Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom and Egypt as leading contributors, in that order. Around US$36 billion of the US$60 billion cost was paid by Saudi Arabia.

The Persian is a major character from the Gaston Leroux novel The Phantom of the Opera. In the book he is the one who tells most of the background of Erik's history. He is referred to by Erik as the "daroga", Persian for "police-chief", and his memoirs are featured in five chapters of the novel. He appears in the Susan Kay fan novel Phantom as a major character.

In the musical, his character and Madame Giry's are added together, as she shows Raoul where Erik lives, however, unlike the Persian, she does not accompany him to Erik's lair.

According to his account of himself in the novel, the Persian served as the chief of police (daroga) in the court of the Shah of Persia during the years that Erik was there. He refers to these times as "the rosy hours of Mazenderan". Being kindhearted, he helped Erik escape from Persia when the Shah-in-Shah ordered him executed, a trick that involved presenting a body washed up on the shore as Erik's. When news of the escape spread, the Shah-in-Shah punished the Persian by stripping him of his property and sending him into exile. He later traveled to Paris and took up living in a small, middle-class flat in the Rue de Rivoli, across the street from the Tuileries, on the modest pension he received from the Persian government. He became known as a fixture of the Opera, considered an eccentric Persian who was allowed to wander backstage where he pleased. He has a Persian servant whose name is Darius.