“This project needs IRIB’s full support and we strongly back the international and interreligious series,” Hamid Shahabadi said on Thursday in a visit to the series’ crew on location in the Iran Television and Cinema Town near Tehran.

The series, which is about the life story Salman Farsi, the Iranian companion of the Prophet of Islam (S), is being made by Davud Mirbaqeri, who is best known for the series he had directed about the history of Islam.

“We should give this good news to the Iranian people, who will be waiting for an amazing work from Mr. Davud Mirbaqeri, which portrays major events from the history of our country and the advent of Islam in Iran,” he noted. 

Mirbaqeri expressed his thanks for IRIB’s regard for his TV series and briefed Shahabadi about the sets made for the great project.

He also expressed his hope that IRIB would provide the necessary support in due time so that his crew would be able to build the sets as planned.

“We are currently shooting the mid-season of the series, in which Salman Farsi leaves Iran when he is a young adult, converting to Christianity and spends years praying at churches and monasteries in the Byzantine Empire,” he added.

Mirbaqeri started shooting “Salman Farsi” in the deserts of Kerman Province in late December 2019 as he said that it was expected to be completed in five years. 

The story of the series will be narrated over three seasons starting with ancient Iran, followed by the Byzantine Empire and finally early Islam. 

Scenes of the project have been filmed at locations on Qeshm Island in southern Iran. 

Mirbaqeri’s crew was scheduled to shoot some scenes in Turkey and Armenia, however, the plan was canceled due the COVID-19 pandemic and they filmed the scenes on sets built in the Iran.

Salman Farsi was one of several individuals of Persian origin residing in Arabia, probably as a consequence of Sassanid's involvement in Yemen. He was among the freedmen (mawali) of the Prophet Muhammad (S) and became the model of Persian converts and the symbol of the role that Persia and Persians would play in the future of Islam.

According to certain traditional narrations, Salman Farsi was the first who translated parts of the Holy Quran into Persian during the 7th century.

Source:Tehran Times