Without a doubt, Ey Reqîb is widely accepted as the Kurdish national anthem. However, one specific line is controversial to some Kurds. Organized by Dildar and Hussein Barzinji in 1938, the poem contains the lyrics “our only religion is Kurdistan”.
In 1946, the Republic of Mahabad adopted Ey Reqîb as its national anthem, though it was not as famous then. In 1991, it was adopted by the Kurdistan Region, and became popular. Islamist Kurds, who played a crucial role in the expulsion of the Ba’athist Iraqi army from Kurdistan and the establishment of the Kurdistan Region, disagreed with its implementation.
It was one of the first signs of the split in the Kurdish movement between Islamists and secularists. On one hand, the Islamists were not tolerant enough to accept the anthem. On the other hand, the secularists were not tolerant enough to either remove or change one line from the anthem. The secular Kurds had the advantage and they used it not only to remove Islamism from Kurdish politics, but sometimes even to crack down on the practice of Islam in Kurdish society. The Islamists also cracked down on secular activities when they controlled Halabja, which was part of the Islamic Emirate of Kurdistan that existed until 2003. Essentially, both sides were intolerant.
The line, although problematic, represented the feelings of 20-year-old Dildar in prison, who was in disbelief at the cruelty of the world. Both Dildar and Hussein Barzinji being Muslim, the line did not literally mean that the Kurds worshipped Kurdistan, but represented betrayal at the hands of the Kurds’ “religious brothers”. To the average Kurdish Muslim, this was no surprise. Some Turkish Islamists have used the line to discredit the Kurdish movement, ignoring the fact that a Turk had made the statement much earlier in 1926, when Hasan Ruşeni Barkın published a nationalist, anti-religious document titled “There is no religion, only nation. My Turkishness is my religion.”
Some Christians and Yezidis also disagreed with the line, claiming thar no matter how much they love Kurdistan, patriotism cannot exceed its limits, and religion is the most important limit, no matter the religion.
In 2013, the Supreme Board of Fatwas of Kurdistan, part of the Union of Islamic Scholars of Kurdistan, declared that there was nothing in Ey Reqîb that violated religion.
It has been almost 35 years since the adoption of Ey Reqîb, and the debate has long calmed down. A lot of Muslim Kurds have no problem with it, and many to tried to clear the confusion on what the line meant. However, the vast majority of the Kurds do not see it as something worth fighting over.