Rander

Rander stands on the northern bank of the Tapi opposite Surat. Before its neighbour rose to prominence, it was a port whose merchants connected Gujarat with Arabia and Southeast Asia. Spices and other goods moved through its maritime networks, and Muslim traders made the town a centre of religious and commercial life. As Surat expanded, Rander’s relative importance declined, but its old mosques and neighbourhoods preserve the memory of a long-established trading community.