وَشَرَوهُ بِثَمَنٍ بَخسٍ دَراهِمَ مَعدودَةٍ وَكانوا فيهِ مِنَ الزّاهِدينَ
And they sold him for a cheap price, a few dirhams, and they were uninterested in him.
EXEGESIS
Bakhs (cheap) originally means to fall short of what something should really be. As such, the word also carries with it a meaning of unjust evaluation, like in the verse, and do not cheat (tabkhasū) the people of their goods (7:85). Here it means an insufficient sum.
Darāhim is the plural of the singular dirham, which refers to minted silver coins. In pre-Islamic times there was no standard for the dirham, and dirhams of different weights were used. The Quran only uses the word once, and only in this plural form. The origin of the word has been traced back to the Greek drachma. Drachma originally means ‘as much as one can hold in the hand’. Others have also suggested Farsi as the origin of the word dirham. See the next section for a further discussion.
Maʿdūdah (few) literally means that which is counted, from the verb ʿadda, to count. However, the expression maʿdūdah means a few. This is because a large sum is something that is ‘uncountable’, whereas a small sum is easily counted.
Zāhidīn (uninterested) is the plural of zāhid, which is the active participle of zuhd, meaning the one who is uninterested in the wares of this world. Hence it is the opposite of desire and want, specifically for worldly things.
EXPOSITION
After Prophet Joseph (a) was unjustly taken as a slave, he eventually was taken all the way to Egypt, where he was sold. In this verse, God decries how some people will commit grave injustices, like selling a young boy and a future prophet of God into slavery, in exchange for a paltry sum of money. How unfortunate are those who eagerly sell their hereafter at such lowly prices.
And they sold him: apparently, he was sold by the members of the caravan once they reached Egypt.
For a cheap price: the description is ironic and it should not be understood that Prophet Joseph (a) was necessarily quite literally sold for a small sum, but rather that any price he was sold at would have been small, because there was no accounting for the true value of Prophet Joseph (a), beloved to God as he was.
Simultaneously, it is entirely possible as well that he was sold for less than what a similar slave might have usually been sold for, perhaps because they knew that he had been wrongfully taken as a slave and were eager not to draw too much attention to that fact, but rather to quickly offload him, rather than risk for example someone who spoke Prophet Joseph’s (a) language coming across him only to hear from Prophet Joseph (a) what had actually happened to him.
A few dirhams: apparently, dirhams is not here used to literally mean actual silver coins, but simply to mean a paltry sum, as opposed to for example gold dinars, or a significant amount of silver, which is what a slave would usually have been sold for at the time of the Quran’s revelation. The statement should be seen as an expression similar to saying ‘he was sold for a few pennies’, or ‘it is not worth even a penny’, without actually literally meaning pennies.
And they were uninterested in him: they did not realise Prophet Joseph’s (a) true value with God, and no price could be put on someone like him. Hence, by selling him they exchanged something exceedingly and immeasurably valuable for a paltry and fleeting worldly sum, as if they were ascetics who did not care about money at all! Like an ascetic who comes across a priceless diamond in the desert and then at the first opportunity exchanges it for a humble mule, because he has use of the mule but no desire for princely wealth.
Note also that this was the third of the triple emphases (the first two being a cheap price and a few dirhams) in the verse on how Prophet Joseph (a) was sold for a measly sum. The verse is steeped in lamentation of how God’s prophet was sold into slavery and how people are willing to wrong each other for small worldly gains. However, God permitted all this to happen, as it was all part of His plan to elevate the station of Prophet Joseph (a). There is also an important lesson here about exchanging things of true value for paltry and temporary things of no real value, like those who exchange their hereafter for some brief and small worldly enjoyment.
INSIGHTS FROM HADITH
- From ʿAbd-Allāh ibn Sulaymān, that Imam al-Ṣādiq (a) said: ‘Joseph was honoured when by the side of his parents. Then he became a slave and was sold for the cheapest and paltriest sum. Then God did not prevent him from reaching a position of authority until he became a ruler.’
- It is reported from Imam al-Hasan (a) that he declared that a child that is found (laqīṭ) should be treated as a freeman and not a slave, and recited this verse as proof. The same is also reported from Imam Ali (a).
REVIEW OF TAFSĪR LITERATURE
It has been said that bakhs (cheap) has the meaning of ḥarām (forbidden), because it was forbidden for them to sell Prophet Joseph (a); however there is no basis for such a claim.
INSIGHTS FROM OTHER TRADITIONS
- Then they [Joseph’s (a) brothers] sat down to eat. And looking up, they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, with their camels bearing spices, balm, and myrrh, carrying it down to Egypt. Then Judah said to his brothers, ‘What profit is it if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let us not lay our hand on him, for he is our brother and our own flesh.’ So his brothers agreed. Then when the Midianite merchants passed by, they drew Joseph up and lifted him out of the pit and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver. They took Joseph to Egypt. When Reuben returned to the pit and saw that Joseph was not in the pit, he tore his clothes. He returned to his brothers, and said, ‘The boy is not there, and I, where can I go?’
Note: The Biblical account is again quite different to the Quranic one, asserting that Joseph’s (a) brothers were the ones who took him out of the well and sold him. This is mentioned in some exegetical works as well. Although they usually assert that the caravan drew him out after which the brothers approached, claiming he was their runaway slave, and then selling him to the caravan. However, this is contrary to the apparent meaning of the Quranic verses, which say that it was the caravan that pulled Prophet Joseph (a) out then eventually sold him. The way the Quranic narrative has structured the story clearly tells us that the brothers had already returned to their father, and subsequent to that Prophet Joseph (a) was discovered by a caravan. Furthermore, as we earlier discussed, it is obvious from verse 10 that the brothers’ plan was always that a caravan would discover him in the well, unlike the Biblical one, in which they abandoned him in the well to die, only to then change their minds. If they had wished to sell him to a caravan themselves, they would never have plotted to throw him into the recess of the well so that some caravan may pick him up (verse 10).
Hence, these stories related by some exegetes should be seen for what they are, ill thought out attempts to remould the Quranic narrative to fit the Biblical one. This is why many of the classical and medieval exegetical works that adopted this view struggled to give a salient meaning to this verse, especially its ending and they were uninterested in him, offering many convoluted interpretations. This verse is perhaps a good case study in why Quranic exegesis should not be primarily based on simply adopting what some early exegetes (such as the ones of the generation of the Followers) have said, whose (reported) opinions were sometimes heavily mixed with Isrāʾīliyyāt and fanciful tales.
Many of these early exegetical works also then claim that when Prophet Joseph (a) was sold in Egypt – for a second time, since they claim his brothers were the ones who sold him for a cheap price – a bidding war was started regarding him and he was sold for an exorbitant sum, such as his weight in gold or more. Again, no reliable evidence is supplied for such claims, or they are simply sourced from the stories of Wahab ibn Munabbih.
[1] Tibyan, 6/115; Tabari, 12/102.
[2] Tabari, 12/102; Nemuneh, 9/355-356.
[3] Tibyan, 6/115.
[4] Raghib, p. 312; Bahrayn, 6/61.
[5] It is usually said that these weights were standardised during the caliphate of ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb (Bahrayn, 6/61).
[6] Qamus, 2/342; Arthur Jeffries, Foreign Vocabulary of the Quran (Leiden: Brill, 2007), pp. 129-130; G C Miles, EI2, 2/319, ‘Dirham’.
[7] Arthur Jeffries, Foreign Vocabulary of the Quran (Leiden: Brill, 2007), pp. 129-130. Although he contends that it may have passed through several other languages before coming into Arabic.
[8] Bahrayn, 6/61; Tahqiq, 3/232.
[9] Tibyan, 6/115; Baghawi, 2/482; Tantawi, 7/334.
[10] Related in Zamakhshari, 2/453.
[11] Raghib, p. 384, z-h-d.
[12] Lisan, 3/196; Bahrayn, 3/59, z-h-d.
[13] Mizan, 11/107-108; Nemuneh, 9/355; Tantawi, 7/334; Munyah, 14/159; related in Tabrisi, 5/337; Tabari, 12/102. While it is possible that he traded hands more than once between Canaan and Egypt, and that the caravan which found him sold him to another caravan, which then eventually sold him in Egypt, the apparent meaning of the Quranic narrative does not hint at that.
[14] See also Muhit, 6/254; Nemuneh, 9/355.
[15] The current general consensus is that the first usage of gold and silver coins dates to Lydia around the seventh century BCE. See Donald Kegan, ‘The Dates of the Earliest Coins’, in American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 86, No. 3 [July 1982], pp. 343-360, accessed at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/504425. This invention was then adopted by the Achaemenid Darius I after his conquest of Lydia and spread throughout Asia Minor. The Persian gold coin was also called a daric, ostensibly after Darius himself, but possibly from the Old Farsi word darī, meaning golden. See Michael Alram, ‘Daric’ in Encyclopaedia Iranica, VII/1, pp. 36-40, accessed at: http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/daric. Minted silver coins became a popular standard and made their way into various parts of Arabia a few centuries later. See S C H Munro-Hay, ‘The Coinage Of Shabwa (Hadhramawt), And Other Ancient South Arabian Coinage In The National Museum, Aden’, in Syria, vol. 68, (1991) pp. 393-418, accessed at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4198901. The Persian daric coins became a transnational currency and popular throughout the region. Thus, as we mentioned, the Arabic word, dirham either originated from the Greek drachma or the Farsi daric. Seeing as Prophet Joseph (a) probably lived somewhere around a millennia before this, the word dirham should neither be understood as the actual dirhams that the Arabs used, nor in its literal sense of a minted silver coin. In Ancient Egypt trade was commonly done on the basis of ‘money-barter - that is, barter with reference to fixed units of value’. In other words, goods would be bartered for measured units of other commodities, most commonly grain, copper, and silver. Hence, whilst money in its later sense did not exist there, its precursors of standard value and means of payment did exist. See Ben Haring, ‘Economy’ in UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, vol 1. (2009), p. 6, accessed at: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2t01s4qj. There is plenty of evidence of precious metal in various forms being used as currency in Ancient Egypt. One for example was metal rings or coils which could be cut as necessary. See Edmond Sollberger ‘Selected Texts from American Collections’ Journal of Cuneiform Studies, vol. 10, No. 1 (1956), pp. 11-31, accessed at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1359139. So, for example, a house could be bought for a specified amount of measured units of gold, clothing for specific measures of grain, and a slave for measures of silver.
Noteworthily, the Egyptian word for ‘money’ and ‘silver’ is the same, ḥd. By the time of the Egyptian New Kingdom – which is likely when Prophet Joseph (a) lived – the word took on a general meaning and ‘was used to refer to payment, even if the payment was not actually in silver’. See Ben Haring, ‘Economy’ in UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, vol 1. (2009), p. 6, accessed at: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2t01s4qj. The Quranic usage of dirhams is then a most appropriate one, as it too is a general term for money, whilst also intending silver. Additionally, it is quite likely that some weight of silver was used to complete the sale of Prophet Joseph (a). However, none of this excludes what we said about the expression being a figurative one first and foremost.
[16] Related in Tabrisi, 5/337.
[17] Ahkam, 3/1079.
[18] Ayyashi, 2/172; Nur, 2/418.
[19] Qurtubi, 9/157.
[20] Suyuti, 4/11.
[21] Related in Tabari, 12/102; Thalabi, 5/204.
[22] Ahkam, 3/1079.
[23] Many classical and medieval exegetes also mention the amount of twenty dirhams, saying that each brother was paid two dirhams. Some have reported the number twenty-two as well, apparently including Benjamin as one of the conspirators. Other numbers such as ten and forty and eighteen (apparently excluding the oldest of the brothers) have also been mentioned (see for example Tibyan, 6/115; Tabrisi, 5/336-337; Tabari, 12/103; Thalabi, 5/205; Zamakhshari, 2/453; Baghawi, 2/482; Muhit, 6/253). Some of these have also been attributed to the Imams, in contradictory amounts (see also Ayyashi, 2/172), but such reports are not reliable.
[24] Genesis 37:25-30.
[25] For example Tibyan, 6/114-115; Tabrisi, 5/336-337; Tabari, 12/102; Baghawi, 2/481. Ṭabrisī says this was the opinion of most (early) exegetes.
[26] See also the discussion in Mizan, 11/107-108; Munyah, 14/159.
[27] As is the case in Muhit, 6/254. Rāzī fiercely rejects such stories (Razi, 18/435).
[28] As is the case in Thalabi, 5/205; Baghawi, 2/482.