Baba Gammar is the Turkmen patron of music and of the dutar, the nation's emblematic two-stringed lute. Identified with Qanbar, the groom of Caliph ʿAli's horse Duldul, he is remembered in Turkmen legend as the maker of the first dutar: having fixed a nut upon its neck and stretched the strings, he brought forth a heavenly sound. Bagshy and aspiring musicians venerate him as a nurturing patron of their art, naming him together with Gorkut Ata and Ashyk Aýdyň Pir as the founding saints of Turkmen musicianship.