Lahari Bandar

[2] By the time of Ibn Battuta in the early 1300s, Lāharī had become the main port of Sindh, replacing Debal.

[3] He also wrote that there were the ruins of an older city nearby, where there were lots of stones, including some shaped like people and animals.

[2] The locals, he related, said that the inhabitants of the old city had been so wicked that God "transformed them, their beasts, their herbs, even to the very seeds, into stones".

[2] In the following centuries, Lahari Bandar was one of the four main ports on the western coast of India (the others were Khambhat, Kollam, and Calicut).

[5] Lahari Bandar's position in the southern Indus Delta was naturally well-suited to being a major entrepôt.

[6] The Ain-i-Akbari lists Lahari Bandar as a mahal in the sarkar of Thatta, with a total revenue of 5,521,419 dams.

[6] The Shahjahannama wrote hyperbolically that Lahari Bandar was such a big port that it could accommodate 1,000 ships at a time.

[3] The account of Alexander Hamilton describes the commercial activity that took place at 17th-century Lahari Bandar: whenever a ship approached the port, a gun was fired to inform local merchants of its arrival.

[3] They maintained a trade monopoly here and did not allow foreign merchants to enter without a carta (pass) issued by them.

[3] The shahbandar, or comptroller of the port, was often concerned with a loss of Portuguese trade revenue and tried to keep them in good humour.

[3] He had apparently held Lahari Bandar in jagir and then by 1640 farmed it out to Mir Zarif, later known as Fidai Khan, who became shahbandar in his own right.