A tactic that most of the colonial powers used was to divide local ethnic/religious groups and set them up in opposition to each other, the concept being if they fight each other they won't fight us. This meant that areas that were a united people under the Ottomans found themselves suddenly split into fractions with borders between the colonial powers imposed on them. Think of it as the colonial version of gerrymandering.
Essentially how the Indian subcontient and the Indian Raj was controlled by the EIC.
In 1857, the ‘Great Mutiny’ broke out in which the Hindus and Muslims jointly fought against the British. This shocked the British government so much that after suppressing the Mutiny, they decided to start the policy of divide and rule.
The British would pay off various people to speak out against the other group i.e. pay of a Hindu priest to stoke anti-Muslim sentiments, and vice versa.
The Ottoman empire was every bit as colonial and extractive as any Western power - the same favoring of local ethnic groups over others, the same subjugation of native cultures.
