According to Middle Eastern mythology, ghouls are evil female spirits of the desert.

Able to assume the shape of an animal, ghouls are grave robbers, living off the flesh of the dead.

Travelers planning to cross any of the vast deserts or savannahs of North Africa, the Middle East, or Central Asia should be aware that ghouls often entice men off the road and confuse them. Once the men are disoriented, the ghouls proceed to feast on their flesh.
I was told when i was young that ghouls are married to the prince of blood, that a man called rupert strooner found ghouls laying over him while he was sitting on his throne holding a smooth stick with a glass ball at the top filled with blood; there was a spike at the top with a demon's head on it. Its face had cut eyes and it had everything sucked out of it. They sent more men to look at what was happening but they have been found with cut eyes, slit throats, and wrists and everything cut off of them.