The ashiq and the saz

Ashiq, from an Arabic word meaning ‘lover’, is the name of the minstrel of the Azerbaijani-speaking world. An ashiq is at once a poet, a singer, a storyteller and an instrumentalist. The instrument is the saz, a long-necked lute with a deep pear-shaped body and metal strings, struck with a small plectrum. The ashiq performs at weddings, gatherings and festivals, in tea houses and on stage, singing romances and epics, improvising verse and, in a traditional form of contest, matching wits with a rival ashiq in sung riddles and replies.

Ashiq tradition draws on a deep store of stories: the dastans of lovers such as Asli and Karam, the heroic cycle of Koroghlu, and the older world of the Book of Dede Korkut, the epic of the Oghuz Turks, whose bard is himself pictured with a lute, the qopuz. The poetry is in Azerbaijani Turkish and uses strict syllabic forms of its own, the qoshma, gerayli and tajnis among them. Many ashiqs composed their own verses, and the songs of famous masters such as Ashiq Alasgar of Göycha (1821–1926) are sung on both sides of the border.

In Iran

In Iran, ashiqs are found throughout the Azerbaijani-speaking north-west, in Tabriz, Urmia, Ardabil, Zanjan and the Qaradagh or Arasbaran region along the Aras, as well as among Azerbaijani-speaking communities of Qazvin and Hamadan and among the Qashqai of Fars, who keep their own ashiq tradition. In many places the ashiq plays with a small ensemble: a balaban, a double-reed pipe with a soft, mournful tone, and a qaval, a frame drum. Local styles differ, and the ashiqs of Qaradagh in particular are known for a distinctive repertoire of melodies and stories.

Traditionally an ashiq learned from a master, ustad, through long apprenticeship, and the art passed within families and from teacher to pupil. In the twentieth century radio and recordings carried the ashiq’s songs far beyond the wedding party, and today ashiq houses and associations in Tabriz and elsewhere teach the saz and the repertoire to younger players. Women have a place in the tradition’s history too: Ashiq Pari, a nineteenth-century woman poet of Karabakh, is remembered for her verses and her contests in song.

In the Republic of Azerbaijan

North of the Aras, the ashiq is equally central to the culture of the Republic of Azerbaijan, which defines and presents the tradition as its own. In 2009 UNESCO inscribed the art of Azerbaijani ashiq on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, on Azerbaijan’s nomination. Turkey’s related tradition of âşıklık was inscribed in the same year under its own nomination. The ashiqs of Iran and of the Republic share stories, forms and many melodies, while each community keeps its own masters, styles and sense of what the tradition means.