Excerpt from "Ladakh Past & Present" by Prem Singh Jina, Google Books

During the early part of the 20th century, the Shahdad Family had a rich history of trade in Ladakh. In the book above, Prem Singh Jina, talks about "Ahmad Shahdad" and his trade within Ladakh. As the author mentions, Shahdad's used to purchase small sized Namdas in Leh, get them dyed and embroidered in Srinagar and then exported these Namdas to foreign countries. At a time when Kashmir was a little hidden valley unknown to much of the rest of the world, the Shahdad family had established trade with foreign countries and had in the process become one of the most affluent families in the Kashmir valley.

Memories of our ancestral trade in Ladakh still circulate in the recollections of our elders. Our elders used to travel to Ladakh and beyond, when there were no modern means of travel. It is said that they used to ride on horse backs starting from the Kangan valley and these journeys would sometimes last six months or more.

As the extended family spread around in the city after the 1950s, some of the children of the Shahdad family, who had seen their elders being the pioneers of the Namda trade in Kashmir, started their own businesses and revived some of the old glory of our family. One such business was Cottage Industries Emporium, started by Mohammad Maqbool Shahdad and his sons, who lived at Boulevard Road, Srinagar. Mohammad Maqbool Shahdad and his sons had moved to Boulevard in the 1960s from their ancestral home in Bul Bul Lanker. In the 1970s the family started an export business which grew considerably over the next two decades, exporting Namdas, Carpets, Chain Stitch, Papier-Mâché and other Kashmiri handicrafts to many countries in the West.