Was the Ottoman Empire a colonial power? For some recent studies (e.g. Deringil, Minawi, Ennas, Emrence, and Eldem), the answer is affirmative: The Ottoman Empire was just another example of “the Other colonialism”. These studies maintain that the Ottomans assumed a “civilising mission” and adopted common colonial practices akin to those of their colonial rivals in Europe. Especially indicative, some administrative practices employed by the Ottomans in their Arab provinces and North African regencies, and the political discourse they expressed against their nomadic or tribal subjects in these realms are viewed as unequivocal tokens of Ottoman colonialism. However, I challenge the foregoing assertions and argue that “Ottoman colonialism” is an impossible concept on legal, philosophical, and economic grounds. To begin with, from the perspective of legal theory/philosophy, colonial practices are the result of a colonial mind, which requires a long intellectual and economic preparation to be fashioned (Mitchell). Historically speaking, colonialism was primarily a result and fertiliser of the capitalism and industrial economy. The transfer of resources such as raw materials, human labour, agriculture etc. from the colonised country to the core country was initially needed by the industrial economy and then contributed to the capital accumulation further of the colonisers. Considering the limited scale of Ottoman industrial production compared to the European countries during the 19th century, the need for raw material and the human labour was less likely to be a part of the agenda of the Ottoman sultan and the governing elite. In fact, no contemporary testimony exists for Ottoman treatment of provinces as colony in which the elite coming from the centre endeavoured to transfer the local resources for serving the capitalist interests of the centre. It would also be less lucrative for investing to create a colonial administration when no pressure for providing resource to feed a large industrial/capitalist was felt during the 19th century. Therefore, just as “the Islamic State” is an impossible concept (Hallaq), because of the incompatible formative elements of the “state” and “Islam”, I argue that “Ottoman Colonialism” is also an impossible concept because of the lack of capitalist/industrial institutions as well as social and philosophical outlook for such matter.