Karaman has retained ruins of a Karamanid castle and some walls, two mosques and a Koran school (madrasah) from that age.

A mihrab from a mosque from Karaman can now be found in the Çinili Pavilion near the Archeology Museum in Istanbul.

In 1222, the Sufi preacher Bahaeddin Veled arrived in town with his family, and the Karamanoğlu emir built a madrasah to accommodate them.

Veled's son was the famous Rumi, who married his wife, Gevher Hatun, while his family was living in Karaman.

She was buried, along with other family members, in the Aktekke Mosque (also known as the Mader-i Mevlana Cami), which Alaeddin Ali Bey had built to replace the original madrasah in 1370.

[8] When Thomas Jefferson fought Libya's Barbary pirates, he replaced one member of the al-Qaramanli dynasty with another as Pasha.