درهم
Dirham
A silver coin; the Quran says Joseph’s brothers sold him “for a miserable price, a few dirhams” (12:20).
What it means
The word dirham is from the Greek drachmē, which came into Arabic well before Islam, as the Arabs traded with Byzantium and Persia. The Quran says the price was “a few counted dirhams”, which can be read as a few silver pieces by weight.
Often misunderstood as
That the Quran puts a coin of a later age in the time of Joseph.
What the sources say
The Quran is told in Arabic, for Arabic hearers, and its words for money are those of the hearers. Ancient trade used silver by weight long before coinage, and the Bible says that Joseph was sold for twenty shekels of silver (Genesis 37:28), a weight of silver. Translators do the same when they say “pieces of silver” of a time before coins.