According to his account of himself in the novel, the Persian once served as the chief of police (daroga) in the court of the Shah of Persia during the years that Erik was there.

When news of the escape spread, the Shah correctly suspected The Persian of being involved, and punished him by stripping him of his property and sending him into exile.

The Persian later travels to Paris and takes up living in a small, middle-class flat in the rue de Rivoli, across the street from the Tuileries, and employs a servant named Darius.

As part of their apology the British government was paying his son, the Persian, a generous pension that had enabled him to live out his life in Paris.

[1][2][failed verification] He is described in the novel as having an "ebony skin, with eyes of jade", and he wears a short Astrakhan cap along with Western dress clothes of the narrative's historic setting.

Raoul is very confused as to the purpose of the long pistol the Persian has given him, as he is only instructed to keep his hand as if he were ready to fire - and that it does not even matter whether he is holding the weapon.

The Persian finds a hidden exit that allows him and Raoul to drop into a still-lower room filled with gunpowder, which Erik will use to blow up the Opera House unless Christine agrees to marry him.

The novel concludes 30 years after these events, with the Persian - now old and sick, and still attended by Darius - telling how he and Raoul were saved from the flood by Erik, who allowed all three captives to go free.

In the 1925 silent film The Phantom Of The Opera, his character was changed into an inspector for the secret police named "Ledoux" who had been investigating Erik for months.

In the Caliber Comics graphic novel Adventure of the Opera Ghost by Steven Philip Jones and Aldin Baroza, a former daroga named Nadir Khan assists Sherlock Holmes, Dr. John H. Watson, the Comte de Chagny, and Raoul in their attempts to hunt down Erik in the Paris Opera House.