In Victorian Britain, beer was drunk to avoid water-borne diseases such as cholera. Were there similar practices of substituting water for alcohol outside Europe? How did Islamic societies make their water potable? | AskHistorians Archive Observer

In Victorian Britain, beer was drunk to avoid water-borne diseases such as cholera. Were there similar practices of substituting water for alcohol outside Europe? How did Islamic societies make their water potable?

by stupidpower

arcii

I think these resources address the first part of the question: beer was not widely drunk to avoid water-borne diseases

AskHistorians wiki section on "Water, wine & beer"
Response to "When did water replace beer as the staple drink? by /u/Qweniden answers that beer was never as primary of a drink as you might think
A longer thread answering "Is it true that people living in Europe in the middle ages drank beer to avoid getting sick from dirty water?", with some good back-and-forth involving /u/jschooltiger, /u/Qweniden, /u/skirlhutsenreiter and /u/BlueStraggler

That being said, none of the threads address the sources of potable water in Islamic nations, so that part of the question is still fair game!