[12] According to Ibn Battuta, Toghon Temür the last Yuan dynasty emperor of China had sent an embassy to the Sultan of Delhi Muhammad bin Tughluq, requesting permission to rebuild a Buddhist temple at Sambhal, which at the time attracted pilgrims from Tibet.

Two legendary battles between Prithviraj Chauhan and Ghazi Saiyyad Salar Masud are claimed to have taken place here.

At the time under local rulers, in the 13th and 14th-centuries it would go on to become a part of the Delhi Sultanate, first under Qutb ud-Din Aibak and later under Firuz Shah Tughlaq.

A folio from the Baburnama, depicts an award ceremony in Sultan Ibrahim Lodi's court before an expedition to Sambhal in the early 16th-century.

After the collapse of the Delhi Sultanate, the city fell to the Mughals under Babur, briefly serving as the capital of the new empire.