Warith Deen Umar gave a speech in January of 2004. Umar is formerly the Chaplain for the State of New York Department of Corrections. Investors Business Daily reported in a 2007 editorial that " Warith-Deen Umar was caught preaching to inmates -- mostly black converts like himself -- that 9/11 was a miracle of faith and that the hijackers should be celebrated as martyrs."
In 2006, Umar pled guilty to a gun charge and was sentenced to a year of home detention. This charge arose out of an incident in which, according to the Government's Sentencing Memorandum:
Umar got into a dispute with one of his tenants (the "Victim") at 756 Union Avenue, Bronx, New York. During this altercation, Umar retrieved a shotgun, pointed it at the Victim, and said, in sum and substance, that he was going to kill the Victim. These actions ended the confrontation when the Victim fled. When the police arrived on the scene, an officer questioned Umar about the dispute. Umar reported that he had weapons in the home and showed the officer the weapons, which were kept in the closet. Umar also indicated that he had no permit for the shotgun.
The same memorandum noted the following:
According to published news reports, in 2003, Umar was quoted in the Wall Street Journal as praising the 9/11 hijackers, stating, among other things, that "even Muslims who say they are against terrorism secretly admire and applaud" the hijackers. As a result of his statements, Umar was banned from the state prison system, where he had continued to visit inmates after his retirement.
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Finally, in 2005, prior to Umar's arrest, Umar was once again engaged in incendiary speech during periodic Friday sermons he gave at a mosque in the Bronx. During these speeches, Umar frequently preached about jihad, describing it as fighting and killing...that's the real jihad. Umar discussed his banishment from the prisons, and talked about his next step as "jihad." Umar railed about the Iraq war, describing how "brothers" in Iraq were killing "pigs" (American soldiers). Finally, Umar stated that he does not want to die of old age, but as a martyr, and advocates fighting if you can, or if you're older, to give money to the brothers who are fighting. These are merely a few examples of the kind of actions Umar advocates to his followers.
The sentence might have been more had not the presiding judge granted Umar leniency in consideration of his personal achievements.
Here is the transcript of a portion of Umar's 2004 speech.
Transcript:
Umar: "Rise up and fight. And fight them until turmoil is no more and strike terror into their hearts." You think there is no terror in Quran? It's called [word unclear] read it in the 56th surah of the Quran. There's no lack of translation, there's no mistranslation There's not one Sheikh says one thing, no, it's very clear. "When you fight, you strike terror into the heart of the disbeliever."
There was a time they came to Rasool Allah when and he had a vision and he said he looked into the future and he said in the future, the kuffar [unbeliever] will not be afraid of the Muslims and the brother said, "Ya Rasool Allah, is it because our numbers will be very small?"
He said "Our numbers will be tremendous, It will be because of the Wahn."
He said, "What is the Wahn?"
He said, "The Wahn was the weakness is the fear of death and the love of the material things in the dunya."
Now we came to that stage very recently, the kuffar, this was the period that was prophecy, the kuffar was not afraid of the Muslims up until a few days ago now they frightened to death. Green alert, red alert, orange alert. The Muslims are praying. They getting on our planes, they may shoot us down. They scared to death. Alhamdulilah. When I see it I say [unclear] Let's chatter. ‘We heard some chatter, listen man get the army out here, we heard some chatter!' [Audience: laughter]
We are doing what we are supposed to be doing. If the FBI is here, they usually are.
There's going to be a time when you can't come in here, we are going to catch you and we are going to cut (pauses) the label off your lapel. You thought I was gonna say something else [Audience: laughter] we may do that also.
But we gonna cut that label off and we gonna expose you and we gonna expose the imams and the organizations that bring them to their knees and that is how we are going to be successful in dividing the community into those that want to follow this deen according to Allah and his Messenger and those who want to work with the enemy.
And those who want to work with the enemy, let me put some fear in your heart. We are going to catch you and put a tire around you, and you know what we do after that, I don't have to say it.