The former head Islamic chaplain for the state prison system was sentenced yesterday to a year of home detention by a judge who said he deserved leniency on a gun charge after decades of achievements that followed childhood poverty.

Warith Deen Umar will be permitted to leave home for work, medical care and religious services, Judge Robert P. Patterson said.

Earlier this year, Umar, 62, pleaded guilty to a gun charge after admitting he waved an empty shotgun at an angry tenant who struck him at a Bronx building he owns. He also owned a .22-caliber rifle and four shotgun shells.

The government charged Umar with gun possession, saying he was not allowed to have one because he had been convicted in 1971 of possession of a dangerous weapon.

The judge rejected efforts by the government to get him to take into consideration a published report that quoted Umar as saying in an unpublished memoir that even Muslims who say they are against terrorism secretly admire and applaud the September 11 hijackers.

Umar was banned from state prisons shortly after the article was published in 2003 despite his assertion that his comments were taken out of context and that he never said the terrorists were martyrs or honored them.

The judge said he considered the article and two others cited by prosecutors “unreliable for sentencing purposes.”

The Chicago-born Umar told the judge he had tried hard to be a good American throughout his life by buying a home and taking care of his family.

“My life has been about peace and prosperity,” he said.

A raid by federal agents and New York police officers on the home where he has lived for nearly two decades was conducted after his arrest on the gun charge, prompting the judge a week earlier to force prosecutors to show him the search warrants so he could be sure Umar had not been harassed.

The judge said he reviewed affidavits submitted by authorities to get the search warrants and concluded they were sufficient grounds for a search, though some of the information made on the statements turned out to be erroneous.

“We have to remember that 9/11 has had a tremendous impact on this country,” the judge said. “Under these particular circumstances in this country, these things will happen.”