[1] Karamannāme mainly used poet Yarjānī's earlier Persian Shāhnāma as its source, which was written at ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Beg's command.

It first describes how Karaman Beg and his sons appeared as heroic figures in the border region between the Sultanate of Rum and the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia.

The life and rule of ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Beg occupies the largest portion of the work, including his childhood, education, conquests, and relations with other rulers.

Like the state's rise, the work examines the reasons behind why the principality ceased to exist and underlines the illegitimacy of the Ottomans.

Among them, Ahmed, the son of Hasan Bey, who was the defterdar and later mirliva of Diyarbekir, is suggested by some scholars to have been the author of the work.