Why were the european nations interestd in controlling the muslim lands?

Answer 1

...um...they werent. The muslim lands were controlled by the ottomans. Some lands in europe which had some converted muslims were taken by the bulgaians, russians, austrians, etc, but the ottomans were actually serving a great purpose to the europeans, they provided order over numerous unruly peoples. Heck, the UK even propped up the ottomans, so that the Middle East would be kept in line, and the eastern goods could safely flow through the suez canal. Well, britain did take egypt, but that was merely to circumvent the need to travel across the southern tip of Africa, like the portuguese had been doing. With the Suez Canal, the british could easily transport goods from india to europe and beyond. Well, you may say that the ottomans were technically a european power, but they were also a muslim power, so they naturally wanted to control other muslim peoples. After the breakup of the ottoman empire after world war one, when britain had been forced to fight them since the ottomans had allied with the germans, the french and british were pretty much forced to claim mandates in the middle east to control the ensuing chaos after the empire had fractured. They didnt want to, especially after british boys were being sent home in boxes once the jews and arabs started fighting in palestine. This ws exactly what the british were trying to prevent when they were propping up the ottomans. Kind like how the us was propping up various dictatorships because the dictators kept certain extremist elements under their thumbs.