 Ghazali characterized them as a group who are outwardly Shias but were actually adherence of a dualistic and philosophical religion.Further traces of Gnostic ideas can be found in Sufi anthropogenic.Like the gnostic conception of human beings imprisoned in matter, Sufi traditions acknowledge that the human soul is an accomplice of the material world and subject to bodily desires similar to the way archontic spheres envelop the pneuma.