Characterized by the accompaniment of the kopuz, a stringed musical instrument, the classical repertoire of Azerbaijani Ashiqs includes 200 songs, 150 literary-musical compositions known as dastans, nearly 2,000 poems, and numerous stories.

[1] The earliest traces of art of Azerbaijani ashiqs can be found in the 7th century Book of Dede Korkut, which contains the most famous epic stories of the Oghuz Turks.

Beginning in the 1930s, the Art of Azerbaijani ashiqs, like all folk music culture of the peoples of the USSR fell under the strictest control of the state government.

Due to their individual abilities and a keen understanding of the specifics of the native folklore, they make different kinds of variations and changes in their epics and legends, especially in their prose.

As of 2009, the total number of Azerbaijani Ashiqs in the world reached 3000 people, which included in UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list.

[11] The creative abilities of ashigs differ in the following ways: The main genres of Azerbaijani Ashiq poetry include goshma, dastan, ustadnameh, as well as their poetic forms — gerayli, divani, tajnis.

Stylistic and syllabic relationships are in many ways reminiscent of the goshma genre, but differ from the last number of quatrains, subject, meaning and theme music.