The name is commonly confused with ghiyath meaning "salvation", found in Saadia Gaon's Judeo-Arabic translation of Hebrew: יֵשַׁע, romanized: yēšaʿ, lit.
'salvation' in Psalm 20:7, "Now I know that YHWH will give victory to His anointed, will answer him from His heavenly sanctuary with the might of salvation in His right arm (בג'ברואת גיאת' ימינה).
He was the author of a compendium of ritual laws concerning the festivals, published by Seligman Baer Bamberger under the title of Sha'arei Simḥah (Fürth, 1862; the laws concerning Passover were republished by Bernhard Zomber under the title Hilkhot Pesaḥim, Berlin, 1864), and a philosophical commentary on Ecclesiastes, known only through quotations in the works of later authors.
[4] Ibn Ghayyat's greatest activity was in liturgical poetry; he was an author of hundreds of piyyutim, and his hymns are found in the Maḥzor of Tripoli under the title of Siftei Renanot.
He achieved special distinction in his melodious muwashshaḥat "girdle poems", a secular Arabic form first used as a vehicle for liturgical poetry by Solomon ibn Gabirol.