Bayati (Azerbaijani:Bayatı) is one of the oldest forms ofAzerbaijani folk poetry. A bayati consists of four lines, each of which has seven syllables. Therhyme scheme is AABA. Anonymous bayati have been collected as folk wisdom in editions such asAzerbaijani:Xalqımızın deyimləri və duyumları (Our people's sayings and feelings). Bayati can also be strung together in sequence to form longer poems, and there are several bayati dastan, epics, in which all of the verses are bayati; one example isArzu-Qəmbər.[1]
Some folklorists associate the bayati with women's folk creativity, but maleashigs compose bayati as well. Intriguingly, some scholars argue that the bayati dastan are from a lost repertoire of women's dastan, but so far there is no firm evidence to support this theory. In theZagatala region of northernAzerbaijan, male and female ashiqs who play thetanbur sing poetry composed only in the bayati meter.[1]