Sayid Jarrah

Sayid Hassan Jarrah (Arabic: سعيد حسّان جراح) (born 1968) is a fictional character on the ABC television series Lost, played by Naveen Andrews. His character is likely inspired from the real life author/activist Edward Said (although the spelling is different, both names are pronounced the same), as Sayid's words (particularly when referring to "the Others") strongly echo Edward Said's groundbreaking work Orientalism. Furthermore, Edward Said's work centered largely around Western misconceptions of Arabs, and Sayid's character on Lost is frequently defined by his ethnicity, and the assumptions other characters make about it.

Fictional character biography

Prior to the crash

The son of an Iraqi war hero from the Iran-Iraq War, Sayid served as a communications officer in the Iraqi Republican Guard. During the Gulf War, Sayid's base was captured by the Americans. Since he is the only Iraqi in his squad to speak English, he is forced to ask his superior officer about a missing U.S. pilot. When Sayid learns of a planned attack on his home village, he is given a box of torturing tools and uses them to gain the desired information of the missing pilot, who was executed earlier. During this time, Sayid encounters Kate's father, Sam Austen. At the end of the Gulf War, with Saddam still in power, Sayid is released back into the Republican Guard. Though he swore never to torture again, Sayid uses this knowledge to regularly interrogate prisoners. However, when childhood friend Nadia is brought in, Sayid helps her escape by shooting his commanding officer and shooting himself in the leg, making it look as though Nadia was responsible.

Some time after, Sayid leaves the Republican Guard in order to track down Nadia. He eventually travels to Paris, where he works as a chef under the alias Najif, claiming to be from Syria. Sayid is soon offered a job with higher pay at another restaurant, owned by an Iraqi couple. Upon arriving at this restaurant, however, Sayid is taken prisoner and locked in the pantry. Sami, the owner, recognizes Sayid as the man who tortured his wife with boiling oil, and attempts to beat a confession out of him. Sayid denies ever meeting his wife; when Sami's wife, Amira, confronts him, Sayid finally admits to torturing her, and tearfully apologizes to her. Sayid is forgiven, and Amira tells Sami that Sayid is not the man who tortured her after all; Sayid is released soon after. Later, Sayid travels to England, where he is picked up by the ASIS and the CIA. They admit to have been following Sayid's movements, and make him a deal: if Sayid can infiltrate a terrorist cell in Sydney, whose members he is familiar with, and uncover stolen C-4, then they will tell him where Nadia is.

Sayid accepts, and is dropped off in Australia, where he meets with his former college roommate, Essam, from Cairo University. Sayid convinces Essam to become a suicide bomber in order for the intelligence to take possession of the stolen explosives. However, at the very last moment, Sayid attempts to allow Essam to escape; Essam realizes that Sayid has deceived him over a woman, and kills himself. Sayid is given tickets to Los Angeles, departing that day, but he insists on giving Essam a proper Muslim funeral, and asks to catch a flight the next day instead; he is then given tickets for Oceanic Flight 815. At the airport the next day, Sayid asks Shannon to watch his bag while he enters a gift shop, but she turns him over to the authorities. Sayid is promptly released and allowed to board the doomed flight.

After the crash

Season 1

Sayid is accused by Sawyer of being a terrorist and blames him for crashing the plane. Sayid fixes the transceiver recovered from the cockpit, and leads a group into the jungle in order to send out a distress signal. However, he instead picks up a looping message (recorded by Rousseau). Later, he, Kate and Boone try to triangulate the signal in order to locate its origin. However, his efforts are thwarted by Locke, who knocks him out. When Shannon suffers from a near-fatal asthma attack, Sayid brutally interrogates Sawyer in an attempt to recover Shannon's medication. Feeling extreme guilt, Sayid decides to leave the beach and explore the island. On his way, he discovers a cable in the sand. Curious, he follows it inland, only to be captured and tortured by none other than Rousseau. He helps repair her music box, but manages to steal some maps from her before returning back to the beach.

Upon returning, he seeks Shannon's help with translating the maps. Upon doing so, the two bond and eventually form a relationship, much to Boone's resentment. He tells Sayid to stay away from her, but the two grow even closer. Sayid takes Shannon to an isolated part of the beach for a romantic night. Upon their return, Sayid and Shannon are informed of Boone's death. Sayid is the only person to speak at Boone's funeral. Later, the relationship takes a turn for the worse after Sayid refuses to kill Locke, causing Shannon to seek revenge herself. He does, however, confront Locke over the hatch that he and Boone discovered in the jungle prior to his demise. He then takes Jack to the hatch, and the three speculate how to enter.

Rousseau arrives on the beach one morning with news that the Others are coming to abduct a child. Sayid begins to lead a group into the caves when he is sidetracked by Rousseau. Shortly after, he learns that Claire's baby, Aaron, had been kidnapped by Rousseau. He and Charlie pursue her and eventually return Aaron to Claire.

Season 2

Sayid and Shannon's relationship seems to be back on track. However, when Shannon tells him that she has seen Walt in the jungle, he suggests she was having a dream. Sayid is then called into the hatch after the computer is damaged. He manages to repair it successfully. Days later, Sayid and Shannon decide to spend the night together when she again encounters Walt during his brief absence. Sensing she is still distraught, Sayid follows her into the jungle. After trying to reason with her, the two eventually see Walt. Sayid goes to follow, but trips. He then witnesses Ana Lucia shooting Shannon; she collapses in his arms and dies. Sayid becomes angry, but is knocked out and tied to a tree before he can react. He is later released, and forgives Ana Lucia for her mistake.

He attempts to speak at Shannon's funeral, but is unable to finish his speech. Some time later, Ana Lucia brings Sayid into the jungle, where she has seen Rousseau. Rousseau takes Sayid to a man she caught in one of her traps, suspecting him of being an Other. Sayid takes the man, claiming to be called "Henry Gale", into the hatch, where he starts interrogating him. He eventually gives in after failing to extract satisfying information from him. Later, he allows Mr. Eko to speak with him briefly. One day, while working on building a table for the beach with Charlie, Ana Lucia approaches him with a map to the alleged balloon that crashed in the jungle. The three head off into the jungle and eventually discover the balloon, along with a grave that matched Henry's description. Still not satisfied, Sayid digs up the grave and discovers that it is not Henry's wife that is buried - it is actually a man with an ID card, revealing that the dead body is the real Henry Gale.

Sayid returns to the hatch and fiercely continues to interrogate him. However, Henry refuses to speak with anyone, causing Sayid to give up. He fixes a radio that Hurley brings him, and also suggests taking Libby on a picnic using the same beach he took Shannon. When he learns of Michael's return, and the deaths of Ana Lucia and Libby, Sayid offers to help Michael with confronting the Others. However, Michael declines his offer, causing Sayid to grow suspicious. He tells Jack that he suspects Michael has been "compromised", and plans to follow somehow. Fortunately, Desmond unexpectedly returns with his boat, and Sayid plans on using it. He asks Jin to accompany him, but Sun insists on joining them, knowing that Sayid would need her to translate for him. The three head off and follow Jack and the others by sea. On their journey, they pass a statue of a four-toed foot. They arrive at the Others' camp, and Sayid enters cautiously, only to learn that the camp is merely a decoy. He later witnesses the island being engulfed in a violet glow.

Season 3

Sayid is still at sea with Sun and Jin. He plans to lure the Others to the pier, in an attempt to kidnap two of them for interrogation, and asks Sun to lie to Jin until he creates a smoke signal; Jin sees through Sayid's plan, using his knowledge of English to realize his plan. Sayid and Jin wait that night on the pier. However, their plan backfires when the Others arrive via the sea and hijack the boat. After being reunited with Sun, Sayid and the Kwons make their way back to their camp. Upon returning, Sayid checks up on Mr. Eko, and helps put out the fire when his tent is set alight. Later, Sayid joins Locke, Desmond, Nikki and Paulo on a trek to the Pearl station. Once there, Sayid reconfigures the circuits in the television screens until he manages to gain brief surveillance footage from another station (The Flame), where they see an eye patched man. Upon leaving he witnesses Mr. Eko's death. He agrees with Locke to inform Hurley and Charlie, but rushes back to the beach to witness Desmond rescuing Claire. When Kate and Sawyer return, Sayid and Locke join her and Rousseau in rescuing Jack.

The four arrive at the Flame station, where they encounter Mikhail, the man they saw in the surveillance feed of the Pearl. Sayid sees through his lie as the sole-surviving DHARMA member, and exposes him as an Other. Sayid enters the basement and takes some maps of the different stations, discovering in the way that the basement is full of C-4 explosives. Upon leaving, with Mikhail taken hostage, Sayid witnesses the Flame's destruction, blaming John for the incident. Locke, however, claim ignorance about the existence of C-4 on The Flame's basement. Regardless, the five move along following the maps indications until they come across a sonar panel fencing. Sayid scolds Locke when he pushes Mikhail through it, apparently killing him. Sayid then discovers the stolen C-4 explosives in Locke's bag, and questions his reason for accompanying them. The four later arrive at the Others' barracks, where they watch, in shock, as Jack bonds with the Others. That night, Sayid and Kate infiltrate the barracks, only to be kidnapped. Sayid is tied to a swing in a playground. Alex collects his bag, to which Sayid hints to her that her mother is still alive. He is then gassed the next day, released only when Juliet discovers him. He returns to the beach with Jack, Kate and Juliet.

Sayid's efforts to interrogate Juliet are constantly thwarted by Jack. The day after returning to the beach, Sayid and Sawyer follow Juliet and surround her when she collects medicine for Claire, and attempt to interrogate her. He later changes his mind when she reminds Sayid of Claire's safety. Sayid is soon informed of Naomi's presence, and after speaking to her begins to interrogate her; he is soon taken aback when she gives him her satellite phone. After fixing it and picking up static, Sayid asks Kate not to tell Jack about Naomi. The next day, Sayid is taken into the jungle, where Jack and Juliet come clean and reveal their secretive plans to destroy the Others. When Karl warns them of their imminent arrival, Sayid remains on the beach to detonate the dynamite, along with Jin and Bernard. That night, Sayid shoots his target accurately, but ultimately winds up captured by the remaining three Others. Just as Sayid, Jin and Bernard are about to be killed, they are rescued, Hurley runs over Ryan Pryce using the DHARMA Van which kills him and when the other called Jason walks infront of Sayid, Sayid trips him up and snaps his neck with his feet killing him. Sawyer, meanwhile, shoots the last remaining Other (Tom) in cold blood. Sayid is later seen at the end of the finale covering the corpses of the three dead Others with Juliet.

Season 4

After defeating The Others on the beach, Sayid continues to cover the bodies until they are interrupted by the arrival of Desmond, back from The Looking Glass. Desmond warns them about Charlie's last message ("Not Penny's Boat"), telling them that the freighter that Jack is looking to contact is not what it's occupants claim it to be. The group quickly wants to radio a warning to Jack, however Sayid warns against this, believing that the freighter more than likely is monitoring their communications, and any attempt to contact Jack would give away the element of surprise. After learning of Charlie's death, and the decision to contact Jack taken away by Hurley, Sayid joins them in trekking to Jack's location on foot. Hurley is separated from the group and returns to them with Locke. Locke asks the group for support in arguing with Jack, however Sayid refuses to help him due to Locke's destroying of The Other's submarine. Eventually, Jack and Locke have their confrontation, and Locke asks everyone to follow him to The Barracks, splintering the group between Jack loyalists and Locke loyalists. Sayid elects to remain with Jack. After he stays loyal to Jack, he goes out to hunt for more of the people who crashed on the helicopter. He finds an apartment, and inside Hurley is tied up in the closet, claiming that "They left him". Sayid and Kate then split up, only having Kate being found by Sawyer, yelling to Sayid for help. Sayid is then found by Locke, who imprisons him with Ben. Sayid then makes a trade with Locke for Charlotte, who he brings back to Jack and the helicopter. Charlotte then doesn't want to go home, so Sayid, Desmond, and a dead Naomi get on the helicopter.

After the island

Sayid is a member of the Oceanic Six. After leaving the island, Sayid becomes a bad-ass assassin working for Ben.