The performer was Frank William Kissell. Born 1865 in Fort Edward, New York. Died 1939, Utica, New York.
All of his several Arabic and Arabic-sounding stage names were fabrications, as was most all of that character's backstory. He was not from "Arabia" or Egypt. Not Muslim. Not son of a king over 2 million people. Not an immigrant to the US. Not a speaker of 17 languages.
It's true Kissell, under these stage names -- Hadji L. Cheriff, Hadj Lessik, Hadj Cheriff ben Mahomet, Hadj Le Mahofode Cheriff -- performed with Buffalo Bill's Wild West show in the 1890s and earlier with the Barnum & Bailey Circus.
The name he added -- Lessik -- is his real surname backwards.
Before this Oct. 1894 film, he performed for the same Edison Black Maria kinetoscope camera in July. But that film is not known to survive.