Editing Idi Amin (section)

== Early life ==
Virtually all retellings of Amin's early life are contradictory, as he did not write an [[autobiography]] and never authorized a written account of his life.<ref name=":3" /><ref name="okadameri">{{Cite news |last=O'Kadameri |first=Billie |date=1 September 2003 |title=Separate fact from fiction in Amin stories |url=http://www.mail-archive.com/ugandanet@kym.net/msg06472.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121001160505/http://www.mail-archive.com/ugandanet@kym.net/msg06472.html |archive-date=1 October 2012 |access-date=8 May 2010 |work=[[Daily Monitor|The Monitor]]}}</ref> British governmental records put Amin's birth year in 1925; however, no records were kept for native Ugandans at the time.<ref name=":3" /><ref name="Keatley" /> In a 1972 interview with [[Judith Hare, Countess of Listowel|Judith Hare]], Amin gives his birthplace as the village of [[Koboko]] and his age as 46, which would put his birth year in 1926. In a book published in 1977 by [[Little, Brown and Company]] and written by a British advisor in [[Uganda]] using the [[pseudonym]] David Gwyn, Amin was born in [[Buganda]] with his age given as 48, placing his birth year in 1928. The most comprehensive biography of Amin comes from his family based on oral tradition, which has some authority but its details ultimately cannot be confirmed. Family tradition and Saudi authorities in Jeddah puts his birth date as 10 [[Dhu al-Hijja]] 1346 in the [[Islamic calendar]] (30 May 1928 in the Gregorian Calendar).<ref>{{Cite news |last=Elliott |first=Chris |date=30 November 2014 |title=Idi Amin's son complains about the Guardian's obituary notice |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/30/idi-amin-son-complaint-guardian-obituary |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141201001507/http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/30/idi-amin-son-complaint-guardian-obituary |archive-date=1 December 2014 |access-date=1 December 2014 |work=[[The Guardian]]}}</ref><ref name=":3" />

=== Early childhood and family ===
[[File:NakaseroMarket.jpg|thumb|[[Nakasero|Nakasero Hill]] in [[Kampala]], the district where Amin was reportedly born according to his family.|244x244px]]
According to Amin's family, Ugandan oral tradition, and his Saudi death certificate, Idi Amin Dada Oumee was born on 30 May 1928 at ≈4 am in his father's workplace, the Shimoni Police Barracks in [[Nakasero|Nakasero Hill]], [[Kampala]].<ref name=":3" /><ref name=":4">{{Cite book |last=de Montesquiou |first=Jean-Louis |url=https://doi.org/10.3917/perri.monte.2022.01 |title=Amin Dada |publisher=Perrin |year=2022 |isbn=9782262074739 |location=Paris |pages=27–35 |chapter=Amin avant Amin |doi=10.3917/perri.monte.2022.01 |chapter-url=https://www.cairn.info/amin-dada--9782262074739-page-27.htm}}</ref><ref name=":5">{{Cite AV media |url=https://youtube.com/watch?v=kywAJWW7ais |title=IDI AMIN: A Polarizing Legacy |date=9 April 2019 |last=Mutaizibwa |first=Emmanuel |type=Television production |publisher=[[NTV Uganda]]}}</ref><ref name="monitor_01012004" /> He was given the name Idi after his birth on the Muslim holiday of [[Eid al-Adha]].<ref name=":4" /><ref name=":3" /> According to Fred Guweddeko, a researcher at [[Makerere University]], Amin's birth name was Idi Awo-Ango Angoo.<ref name="monitor_01012004" /> There is disagreement on the meaning of the name "Dada", with some arguing that it meant "sister" or "effeminate" in [[Swahili language|Kiswahili]], but most sources agree that "Dada" was a clan within the Kakwa tribe which was observed over thirteen generations.<ref name="okadameri" /><ref name=":3" /><ref name=":4" />

He was the third son of Amin Dada Nyabira Tomuresu (1889–1976), an ethnic [[Kakwa people|Kakwa]], and his second wife, Aisha Chumaru Aate (1904–1970), a [[Lugbara people|Lugbara]].<ref name="monitor_01012004" /><ref name=":3" /> His father was [[Infant baptism|christened]] as a [[Catholic Church|Roman Catholic]] and born with the name Andreas Nyabira Tomuresu. According to British journalist [[David Martin (journalist)|David Martin]], Nyabira spent most of his life in [[South Sudan]].<ref name=":3" /> He converted to [[Islam]] in 1910 after being conscripted as a [[bugle]]r by the colonial British army under his uncle, the [[Kakwa people|Kakwa]] tribal leader Sultan Ali Kenyi Dada as a six-year-old [[Child soldiers in Uganda|child soldier]] and was given the name Amin Dada.<ref name="monitor_01012004" /><ref name=":4" /><ref name=":3" /> He joined the [[Uganda National Police|Protectorate Police Force]] in Kampala's Nsambia Police Barracks in 1913.<ref name=":3" />

Nyabira was forcibly conscripted into the [[History of the British Army|British]] [[King's African Rifles]] (KAR) in 1914 where he fought in the [[World War I|First World War]] during the [[East African campaign (World War I)|East African campaign]] in [[Tanganyika Territory|Tanganyika]] before being honorably discharged in 1921 and given a plot of land in [[Arua|Arua District]]. The same year, he joined the Protectorate Police Force in the Nsambia Police Barracks prior to being transferred to the Shimoni Police Barracks in 1928, where Amin was born according to his family. He was transferred to the Kololo Police Barracks and retired from the police force in 1931 and worked at the Office of the Resident District Commissioner in Arua District.<ref name=":3" />

His mother, Aisha Aate, was born to a Kakwa mother and Lugbara father. By all accounts, Aate was a traditional healer, herbalist, and a midwife.<ref name="monitor_01012004" /> Ten years before Amin's birth, Aate joined the [[Allah Water]] (also known as Yakani) movement, which was an anti-colonial [[alternative medicine]] congregation centered on a "water of Yakan" that was infused with a psychedelic [[Narcissus (plant)|daffodil]] plant locally known as Kamiojo, described as the {{qi|LSD of Central Africa}}. The movement was repressed by British colonial authorities, who had judged it as rebellion.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Middleton |first=John |date=1963 |title=The Yakan or Allah Water Cult Among the Lugbara |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2844335 |journal=The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland |volume=93 |issue=1 |pages=80–108 |doi=10.2307/2844335 |issn=0307-3114 |jstor=2844335}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hansen |first=Holger Bernt |date=1991 |title=Pre-Colonial Immigrants and Colonial Servants. The Nubians in Uganda Revisited |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/722844 |journal=African Affairs |volume=90 |issue=361 |pages=559–580 |doi=10.1093/oxfordjournals.afraf.a098469 |issn=0001-9909 |jstor=722844}}</ref> Despite being largely described as a cult, Amin's family claims that Aate was a priestess in the "Yakanye Order" which they explained as a {{qi|secret African society}}, of which Idi Amin was also a member, that used {{qi|sacred water and other mystical powers}} for warfare.<ref name=":3" />

According to Amin's family, Aate had cured Irene Drusilla Namaganda, then Queen of Buganda and wife of [[Daudi Cwa II of Buganda]], of her infertility. Aate's high-ranking role in the Allah Water movement allegedly gained the interest of the [[Buganda]]n royal family and her alleged connection to the family led to rumours of Amin's biological father being Daudi Chwa II.<ref name=":3" /><ref name=":5" /> These rumours were reportedly spread by Nyabira's childless senior wife, who was spiteful of Aate bearing two children.<ref name=":3" />

According to Amin's family, Idi Amin was given the title Awon'go ({{Lit|noise}}), in reference to rumours about his alleged paternity. Idi was reportedly chosen to take a 'paternity test' as an infant by tribal elders, which involved abandoning him for four days in a forest near Mount Liru in [[Koboko]] where they returned to find Amin still alive. The elders attributed this apparent miracle to Nakan, a sacred seven-headed snake in Kakwa folk religion.<ref name=":3" /> His brother and sister died in 1932, when Idi was four years old.<ref name="monitor_01012004" />

Amin's parents divorced when he was four, and most accounts suggest that he moved in with his mother's family in 1944 in the rural farming town of Mawale Parish, [[Luweero District]], in north-western Uganda.{{sfn|Hansen|2013|p=85}}<ref name="monitor_01012004" /> The divorce of his parents was reportedly due to the lasting rumours regarding Idi's paternity, which angered his mother.<ref name=":5" /> Despite this, his family insists that he moved with his father per Muslim tradition in Tanganyika Parish, Arua District, while his mother continued to practice healing in Buganda.<ref name=":3" />

=== Boyhood and education ===
While living with his mother's relatives, Amin reportedly worked as a [[Goat farming|goat farmer]] from ages eight to ten.<ref name="monitor_01012004" /> In 1938, he moved to the home of Sheikh Ahmed Hussein in the nearby town of [[Semuto]] and began [[Hafiz (Quran)|memorizing the Quran]] through recitation until he was 12.<ref name="monitor_01012004" /> In 1940, Amin moved to [[Bombo, Uganda|Bombo]] and lived with his maternal uncle, Yusuf Tanaboo.<ref name="monitor_01012004" /> He attempted to register for [[primary school]] but was rejected, this was reportedly due to Amin's paternal [[Nubians|Nubian]] heritage.<ref name="monitor_01012004" />

The same year, Amin was injured while participating in Nubian riots against discrimination at [[Makerere University]] in [[Wandegeya]].<ref name="monitor_01012004" /> He was enrolled in the Garaya [[madrasa]] in Bombo and continued memorizing the Quran under Mohammed Al Rajab until 1944, and reportedly won honours in recitation in 1943.<ref name="monitor_01012004" /> Amin was conscripted by the colonial army alongside fifteen other students before being discharged for being underage.<ref name="monitor_01012004" />

In 1945, he moved to the Kiyindi Parish in [[Bwaise|Bwaise Parish]] and worked different odd jobs, this included work as a doorman and concierge assistant at the [[Grand Imperial Hotel]] in Kampala.<ref name="monitor_01012004">{{Cite web |last=Guweddeko |first=Fred |date=12 June 2007 |title=Rejected then taken in by dad; a timeline |url=http://www.monitor.co.ug/specialincludes/ugprsd/amin/articles/index.php |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070612053237/http://www.monitor.co.ug/specialincludes/ugprsd/amin/articles/index.php |archive-date=12 June 2007 |access-date=8 August 2009 |website=[[Daily Monitor|The Monitor]]}}</ref>