Abū Zakariyyāʾ Yaḥyā ibn Ḥakam al-Bakrī al-Jayyānī (c. 790–864), nicknamed al-Ghazāl ("the gazelle"), was an Andalusi Arab poet and diplomat.
Bearing a response from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān to the letter of Theophilos, al-Ghazāl and his co-ambassador Yaḥyā (called ṣāḥib al-munayqila, the man with the little clock) accompanied the Byzantine ambassador back to Constantinople.
[6] According to this account, when al-Ghazāl refused to perform the customary proskynesis, Theophilos had the doorway leading to his dais lowered so as to force the ambassador to enter on his knees.
Al-Qubbasī shows al-Ghazāl signing a pact of friendship with the Byzantines, while al-Razī calls him an astrologer.
[6] According to Ibn Diḥya, in 844 or 845 the Majūs (his name for the Vikings) launched a raid on Seville and were repulsed by ʿAbd al-Raḥmān II.
You are in love with a Majūsiya, who never lets the sun of beauty set, and who lives at the rarely visited extremity of the world.
[3] In another poem al-Ghazāl criticizes his nephew for playing chess, a sinful and diabolical game introduced to Córdoba in his lifetime by the musician Ziryāb.