The marginalization of blacks and women allowed for a social hierarchy wherein every member of society had a clear place. In the antebellum era, American society was based upon a number of social constructs (Dorsey, 77)
For example, white women who had little power compared to their husbands likely felt powerful in relation to their slaves or to other African-Americans. This is evident in the actions of the minister's wife in the story of James Mars: "The Minister's wife told my father if she could only had him South, where she could have at her call a half dozen men, she would have him stripped and flogged until he was cut in strings, and see if he would do as she bid him" (Mars, 5)
. conformed to traditional white norms about conventional gender roles" (West, 4)
Because the Ahmadis are so active, they are also quite active in building mosques to attract worshippers. Two experts write, "In many places Ahmadiyya mosques were the first, and perhaps are still the only Islamic mosques in the area" (Haddad and Smith 49)
Another expert continues, "Some slaveholders believed Muslims had a disruptive impact on slave management akin to that of any self-appointed slave spiritual leader. Others felt that Muslim or not, a slave was a slave" (Owens 160)
Smith, writes, "It is now a well-established fact that a significant number of black Africans brought to North America during the antebellum slave trade were Muslim. Numbers are impossible to determine, but there may have been several thousand" (Smith 76)
Many owners feared their slaves would rise up together and revolt in the name of their religious beliefs, and so, they forced their slaves to become Christians in the belief this would unite them and somehow prevent them from uprising against their Christian masters. A group of historians note, "The fear of insurrection or revolt under cover of religion was deep and unremitting" (Waugh, Abu-Laban, and Qureshi 217)