What did the dirham mean in the time of the Prophet; was it used as a coin or as a unit of weight?

The word "dirham" is an arabized foreign word, and it refers to a silver coin. Dirhams varied during the pre-Islamic era (Jahiliyyah) and were minted in Islam during the reign of Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan. The Quran mentions the dirham as a monetary unit, as in the Almighty's saying in the story of Joseph: (And they sold him for a paltry price, a few counted dirhams).

The dirham was also used as a unit of weight. An uqiyyah was equivalent to forty dirhams, a nish was half an uqiyyah, and a nawah was five dirhams. The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, affirmed the weights used by the people of Mecca, where they weighed silver by the weight of the dirham and gold by the weight of the dinar. The weight of ten dirhams was equivalent to seven mithqals of dinars. The dirham existed as a standard of weight during the era of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, even if it did not have a unified physical existence, and the customary weights from the Jahiliyyah continued to be used after Islam.