Despite the media attention and the condemnations by politicians, the culture of thought which accommodated-and in many ways-engendered the torture at Abu Ghraib has not been analysed systematically; neither by scholars of 'International Relations (IR), nor by students of contemporary 'Middle Eastern' Studies. This is the point of departure of 'Abu Ghraib and insaniyat'. I move on to argue that the torture could not have happened without a particular racist current in the US, that the individuals who committed the atrocities against the detainees were not isolated, that they were part of a larger constellation with its own signifying ideational attitudes towards Muslims and Arabs. To those ends, both the type of torture and the ways of legitimating it legally and politically are discussed. Reviewing the thoughts of Ali Shariati on the subject of humanity, the article concludes that Abu Ghraib must be treated as an historic revolt against the tenets of insaniyat.