GREEK DRACHMA - THE ANCESTOR OF THE ARABIC DIRHAM

Dirham, dirhem or dirhm was and, in some cases, still is a unit of currency in several Arab states. It was formerly the related unit of mass (the Ottoman dram) in the Ottoman Empire and old Persian states. The name derives from the name of the ancient Greek currency, drachma.
As a result of the conquests of Alexander the Great, the Athenian drachma came to be the monetary unit of the Hellenistic world. In time, silver coins of one drachma and its multiples were debased, and progressively higher proportions of copper were admixed. The drachma  became the prototype of an Islamic coin—the dirham.