Wikipedia
Bayātī ( Arabic بياتي), AKA Bayat and Uşşâk (Ushaq), is the name of a maqam (musical mode) in Arabic, Turkish, and related systems of music. Some Islamic people are known by the name Bayati. It is also used as a 'name of home'. The word 'Boyati' is known as a group of musical people in the Bangla language. Bayati is similar to a natural minor scale, with the primary exception of a half-flat second degree. The dominant of the scale is on the fourth degree.
The maqam is immensely popular in the Arab world, particularly in the Levant. In secular settings, it is favored in dabke and pop music.
Bayati is also used very often in religious liturgies of the Middle East. It is the favored maqam of use for the adhan in Medina, Saudi Arabia. Syrian Jews have an abundance of pizmonim in this maqam, and usually apply it to all Bar Mitzvahs and to Saturday Night services. According to the Assyrian Church, this mode is called Qadmoyo (first).
Related maqamat are Husseini and Bayati Shuri.
Bayati is one of the oldest forms of Azerbaijani folk poetry. They are seven syllable. Anonymous bayati have been collected as folk wisdom in editions such as Xalqimizin deyimlari va duyumlari (Our people's sayings and feelings). Bayati can also form longer poems, and there are several bayati dastan, epics, where all of the verse is bayati, such as Arzu-Qamber.
Some folklorists associate the bayati with women's folk creativity, but male ashigs 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 the Zagatala region of northern Azerbaijan, male and female ashiqs who play the tanbur sing poetry composed only in the bayati meter.