September 19, 2025 • 38 mins
🎙️ EP#374 | GUEST | From Idaho to Islam: Canyon Mims on Faith, Fame & Finding Truth
What happens when a 21-year-old white American from North Idaho embraces Islam after living in Pakistan? In this powerful and deeply human episode, host Ray Doustdar sits down with viral content creator Canyon Mimbs—a young voice with over 1 million followers—to explore his unexpected spiritual journey, breaking stereotypes along the way.
From growing up atheist to becoming a practicing Muslim, Canyon walks us through his transformation with vulnerability, honesty, and clarity. He talks about discovering Islam through real-life connections in Pakistan, the discipline of prayer and fasting, and how true faith reshaped his character, worldview, and purpose. Canyon also opens up about his relationship with his family, how he handles online hate, and why respect and unity across faiths matter more than ever.
This is not your typical religious conversation. It's raw, intelligent, and filled with sharp insights into spirituality, media, social division, and self-growth. Whether you're religious or not, this episode will challenge you to listen harder, think deeper, and maybe even believe in the possibility of peaceful coexistence.
🔥 Top 5 Key Points
🌍 Canyon’s journey from atheist to Muslim
🙏 What it means to be a practicing Muslim in daily life
🤝 Surprising similarities between Islam and Christianity
🧠 Handling hate and criticism with purpose
🕊️ Why unity across faiths is the key to defeating division
🔑 Keywords & Themes
Islam, Muslim Revert, Spiritual Journey, Canyon Mims, Ray Doustdar, DSD Podcast, Faith, North Idaho, Pakistan, Shahada, Prayer, Fasting, Zakat, Ramadan, Christianity vs Islam, Abrahamic Religions, Unity, Religion & Politics, Gen Z Muslims, Social Media, Haters, Sunni vs Shia, Division in Religion, Interfaith Dialogue, TikTok Islam, Peaceful Coexistence, Religious Stereotypes
⏳ Chapters & Timestamps
00:00 – 🎤 Intro: Ray welcomes Canyon Mims
01:06 – 🛤️ Canyon’s road to Islam
02:41 – 🤝 Pakistan, hospitality & faith discovery
03:48 – 🌎 Traveling to build character
04:58 – 👪 Spiritual upbringing & religious shift
06:32 – 🧠 Breaking down Islam simply
08:20 – ✝️ Jesus in Islam vs Christianity
09:38 – 📜 Abrahamic religions explained
10:24 – 🙏 Practicing Muslim obligations
12:18 – 💸 Zakat and the power of giving
14:38 – 🌙 Ramadan & fasting benefits
17:49 – 💬 Dawa to family through action
19:04 – 📞 Telling his dad about converting
20:28 – 🗳️ Politics, labels & mental bandwidth
22:30 – 👪 Family dynamics & openness
25:13 – 🧱 Handling hate with concrete beliefs
27:39 – 🧠 Criticism vs hate
29:10 – 🎯 Long-term vision: Build bridges, not walls
30:12 – 🌍 History of interfaith harmony
31:22 – 🚫 The danger of sectarian division
34:15 – 💣 The myth of "Muslim extremism"
35:42 – 🫱 Final message: Respect, unity, humanity
37:53 – 📲 Follow Canyon on social platforms
📢 Follow & Engage with Deep Shallow Dive:
📌 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/deepshallowdive
📌 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deepshallowdive/
📌 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@deepshallowdive
📌 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@deepshallowdive
📌 Twitter: https://twitter.com/deepshallowdive
📌 Threads: https://threads.net/@deepshallowdive
✨ Top 7 Key Points
🌍 Canyon’s Journey to Islam
🙏 Daily Muslim Practices Explained
✝️ Islam & Christianity Compared
🧱 Navigating Hate on Social Media
📜 Sunni vs Shia Simplified
💸 The Real Purpose of Zakat
🕊️ Unity Over Division
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
The following podcast is a deep shallow dive production.
And you're going to love it. OK, let's go.
All right, so I have been wanting to bring more Muslims
(00:20):
onto this podcast to teach people about the Muslim
religion, and I have one today, everybody.
Now, the extra cool thing about this is this guy is a 21 year
old American white kid for lack of a, for lack of, I guess a
more articulate way to say it, but Canyon Mims, who by the way,
(00:43):
has over 1,000,000 followers on his collective social media,
which congratulations on that. That's a that's a big number,
man. That's definitely a big number.
But dude, it is very cool to have you because I've taken in
some of your content. And I mean, let's just start
there. You are a 21 year old white kid
(01:03):
with a million followers on social media.
And two years ago you decided toembrace Islam and become a
Muslim. Give us, give us, give us how
that happened. You know, one of the best piece
of advice that I ever got in my entire life was be willing to
listen to everybody. Be willing to be proven wrong.
(01:25):
Be willing to listen to people who have completely different
opinions than you and have a neutral conversation with them.
In this modern world we have right now, everybody's so
divided. We've got these pull up, we got
liberals and Republicans, we have Muslims, we have
Christians. It's so divided that we've
gotten to a point where we can'teven have healthy dialogue with
the other religion, with the other political beliefs, with
(01:47):
someone from a different country, someone who has a
different ethnicity. So I've established from a young
age the belief that I will always be willing to hear
someone out, right? Because you've had a different
upbringing than me, someone elsehas had a different upbringing
than me. I don't know the life that
you've lived that's LED you to believing what you believe,
right? So it's unfair of me to judge
(02:08):
your beliefs when I don't know why you have them.
So I was very open minded from ayoung age.
I was looking into religions, I talked to Christians, I talked
to Muslims. I ended up living in Pakistan
and when I was living in Pakistan, there were they
treated me like family. They took me and they really
treated me like family and it made me interested in the
(02:28):
religion. And because I'm willing to hear
out everybody, right? Even today, just before getting
on this, I just had a ex Muslim on my podcast and just did a
Muslim Reaver, ex Muslim Christian conversation, right?
And most people aren't willing to have those conversations, but
I think they're super crucial, so I'm always willing to hear
people out. So I listened to the the Muslims
there in Pakistan, What they're saying made total sense.
(02:50):
I resonated with the religion. One thing led to another and I
took my shahada when I was living there.
OK. OK.
So were you. You grew up in the United
States, though, right? Yeah, I grew up in a in a small
town, North Idaho. North Idaho.
OK. And then did you go to Pakistan
with your family, your parents, you guys all moved there or did
you go by yourself? So a mentor of mine gave me a
(03:13):
piece of advice when I was 18, and the piece of advice he gave
me was the best thing that a young man can do is build his
character through experiences, right?
The average man gets to 40 yearsold and there's no sustenance to
his character. There's nothing behind or he
hasn't done anything. So my mentor told me he's like,
if you want to mature faster, you want to become more wise
(03:35):
quicker, go do incredibly uniquethings that build your
character. So I started traveling around
the globe and I had a business partner at the time.
He was Muslim. And he's like, hey, I'd love to
come travel with you And he but he told me he's like, before we
go, I want to go. 17 years old, you're doing this.
I was at this time I was 19. OK, wow, just.
Just full send you life. Life gives you opportunities.
(03:58):
Everybody's given opportunities in life.
The people who succeed are the ones who take action, right?
So I'm always from a young ages like you just have to do it.
So he's like, do you want to go to Pakistan without thinking?
I was like immediately in my head.
That will make a crazy story. I know when I'm 40I will not
regret living in Pakistan when Iwas 19 years old and that that's
how I ended up there. I wasn't with my family.
I was worth my business partner.That's Wildman.
(04:20):
Wow. OK, OK.
And then before that were you, Iforget, did you say you were
atheist, agnostic, Christian, Catholic?
Were you anything religiously prior?
So my mom grew up Mormon, my dadgrew up Christian.
They both left their religions once they became 18.
I was raised in a household, I'dsay with spirituality, right?
(04:43):
We weren't raised agnostic. We weren't raised to a certain
belief, but in a spiritual sense.
You know, you could say my family was kind of a the, the
hippie vibes, right? You know, like Mother Nature and
that type of stuff. I had my grandma who was Mormon,
so I'd go to the Mormon church with her every once in a while
experiencing that, and I had some Christian friends.
But I myself, up until I was about 18, I was an atheist.
(05:05):
Then I became agnostic, looked through a bunch of religions.
Then I became a Muslim. OK, so atheists, meaning you did
not believe there was a God. Then you shift it to agnostic
where you believe there is a higher power or there's
something, but you don't necessarily define it.
OK, now let's move. Let's move to Muslim.
(05:26):
Define that for us. Like what do Muslims believe?
Who's Who is their Jesus Christ?Is it Muhammad or who is their
Yeah, who is their Jesus Christ?Who is their top dog?
It's crazy how much the media has brainwashed the average
American to not know what a Muslim is.
Right? A Muslims worship Prophet
(05:47):
Muhammad, peace be upon him. No, the definition of a Muslim
is someone who submits their will to God.
OK so when you take your shahadawhich means you become a Muslim,
what you say is I testify that there are no other gods but
Allah and Allah means God. There's no other gods but God,
and Muhammad, peace be upon him,is his final messenger.
(06:08):
That's what a Muslim is. So it's a really interesting
thing. A lot of people think
Christianity and Islam are two separate beliefs.
They're not. There are many Christians right
now that by definition are actually Muslims.
The only major difference between Christianity and Islam
is Christians believe Jesus is God, We believe God is God and
(06:28):
there's no partners and you cannot compare anything to God.
OK, OK, all right, this is awesome.
I want to talk about this. So, you know, I have learned all
this. I was telling you right before
we got on, you asked me, you said, hey, are you religious?
And I said, no, I'm actually notin terms of an organized
religion. You know, I was born in Iran,
technically Muslim, but you knowwhat, our parents decided not to
(06:50):
bring us up religiously when we moved to the United States.
So prior to you, gosh, I've had more Christian pastors and
Christian oriented people on thepodcast and I think we've talked
a lot about that. So this is I'm so happy to have
you on And through my research, it's been really interesting.
I've found so many similarities between Christianity and Islam.
(07:14):
You know, both of the, the biggest one being and in my
opinion, the most important is that Jesus is the Messiah to
both religions. That's amazing Mother Mary, he
was born of a virgin birth to both religions.
That's amazing. They both absolutely, you know,
(07:35):
respect and truly value mother Mary.
That's amazing. Think I think Islam and
Christianity both think there will that Jesus is coming back.
There's going to be I forget. What do you guys call that?
Not the resurrection, but the what's?
What's it called when? It's it's just the same belief
for us, the return of Christ. The return of Christ, both
(07:57):
believe there's a return of Christ.
So really the only thing they differ on is kind of what you
said, and I've always, well, notalways, I've kind of thought
that's the divinity, right? They don't believe you guys as
Muslims don't believe in the divinity of Jesus, meaning he's
not the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, whereas the
(08:18):
Christians do. Is that correct?
That's correct, yeah. OK, So like, that's the only
difference. So I'm always like, they are.
So they're like 95% similar. Why does the world try to make
it to where they claim they hateeach other?
Because they don't. That's where the politics comes
(08:38):
into play. And that's where you have to
really figure out like, OK, who is it that is trying to drive
this wedge between the 2.6 billion Christians and the 2.1
billion Muslims? I kind of know the answer.
I think you probably know the answer.
I'll put it like this. I'll put it like this.
(09:01):
There are three major religions,Abrahamic religions.
OK. And by the way, when you say
Abrahamic, define Abrahamic Abraham.
Really. So Abraham's a prophet, peace be
upon him. And an Abrahamic religion is a
religion that's based off his lineage, right?
So all of the, the prophets, Jesus, Moses, Muhammad, Abraham,
(09:22):
Noah, these prophets, peace be upon all of them, they're all in
the Abrahamic faith, right? So then you've got like Buddhism
and Hinduism which have no correlation with those beliefs
but Judaism, Christianity and Islam they halt have a bunch of
similarities. But the interesting thing.
Christianity loves and respects Jesus.
Islam loves and respects Jesus. Buddaism thinks Jesus is burning
(09:47):
in hell and does not believe in Jesus.
Now they make up the very small minority and Christians and
Muslims are 95% the same but they argue with each other.
Why is that? Whom I want you to do that?
Make the assumption as you as you decide.
You want OK, OK, interesting, super interesting, man, super
(10:09):
interesting. OK, so now tell us as like like
you're, you're a practicing Muslim, right?
I do my best. We're none of us are perfect,
but I do my best. OK, OK, So what does that mean?
What does doing your best mean? What?
What is it that you do? So there are certain things in
Islam that are obligatory, right?
You are required to do these things.
And actually, I'll give you quick little back story to this.
(10:31):
One of the things that attractedme to Islam, why I liked it so
much, is when I met a bunch of Christians, I noticed they were
all lukewarm Christians. They didn't really practice
their faith. I met a bunch of Christians who
don't go to church, who don't read the Bible, who don't pray,
who go out and drink on the weekend.
And then I met a bunch of Muslims and I was like, wow,
none of you guys are like interacting with women that
(10:53):
you're not married with. None of you are smoking weed.
None of you are missing your prayers.
So I was, there's a lot of concrete discipline in Islam.
Like, it's to be a very good devout Muslim is much harder
than being a devout Christian. There's more things you have to
do, OK. There's things obligatory acts.
You are required to pray five times a day as a Muslim.
(11:14):
It's structured. It's at certain times.
Yeah. Yeah.
We have Fudger, which is morningprayer.
You wake up, you have to pray early in the morning.
So it's 55 days of prayers. You have to do that.
And you do that. You do that.
You pray five times a day. I do my best to get it.
Obviously I'm not perfect, but it is obligatory or required.
To do it. That's fair and I appreciate
your honesty with that. And then that process of
(11:36):
praying, does that take 5 minutes?
Does that take 15 minutes? How long does that take?
Yeah, about 5. Minutes, 5 minutes.
OK, OK. Five times a day at specific
times during the day, are those times, do they mean something
like is it sunrise, noon? What's the?
What's the methodology? Yeah, it's just like that.
(11:58):
So it's perfectly spaced throughout the day, right?
So you could have 1, you could have one at 5:00 AM, one at
noon, one at 4:00 PM, and, you know, 6:00 PM and.
Ten. OK, OK, got it.
OK. All right.
So the five prayers a day, you do your best to get that in.
OK, great. And then what else?
What are the other, I guess obligatory things?
So we have zakat is another one,right where that's paying
(12:21):
charity. Every Muslim is required to pay
2.5% of their wealth every single year to a charity.
And what I love about this and the difference of tithing,
right? Tithing, when you tie the
Christian faith, you give your money to the church.
OK. And this isn't a direct diss on
Christianity, this is just a fact.
Look at what the mega churches spend their money on.
Your tithing is going to bring aconcert to your church.
(12:42):
In Islam, we don't give zakat toa government, we don't give it
to a mosque and we don't give itto a world leader.
Zakat goes to the charity. That's between you and Allah,
right? So I could say I pay my zakat
and be lying and no one would know and no one would track me
down and make sure I pay it. But on Judgement Day, which is
when we're all our sins will be exposed, That's between me and
(13:03):
Allah to do that. And what I love about this,
we'll get one final thing on it is it allows you to really have
impact with your charity, right?If I tie them, give 10% of my
wealth to a church, I don't really know what happens.
But when I have to pay 2.5%, I get to choose where that goes
and I can donate it to that charity or give it to this
person or help with that cause. And I have full control over
that. That's another point, OK.
Wow, so this 2.5% you're saying is kind of on the honor system
(13:27):
with you individually. And when you say give it to that
charity, you mean any charity ofyour choice, right?
It's not like you're living it to a specific Muslim charity
that's collecting it. It's really the honor system on
you, 100. Percent, yeah.
OK, that's legit. That's legit.
I mean, you brought up these bigevangelical churches and all
(13:49):
that. I mean, that stuff is insane.
It's like you look at guys like Kenneth Copeland and Franklin
Graham and this guy John Hagee out of Texas.
You know, they're running these monster churches and then the
guys living in a 25,000 square foot mansion.
I mean, that's insane. I have, I have such a hard time
(14:10):
understanding how these unfortunately, it's kind of the
baby boomer Christian generation, but how they don't
see how they're just being manipulated and taken advantage
of by these people who have completely leveraged religion
for their own financial gain under the name of Jesus, who
would probably be repulsed with all that.
(14:32):
That's interesting. OK, All right.
So the charity, anything, anything else.
I know with Ramadan and fasting,that's a big thing, right?
So we have obligatory fasts where you have to fast for an
entire month, which is the holy month of Ramadan, or you fast
from sunrise to sundown, no food, no water.
So for a very extended period oftime, there's major sense.
(14:52):
Sunrise to sundown, no food, no water, nothing.
No food, no water sustained fromsex.
So it's purity, right? So that entire time it's all
about worship. You're fasting for worship.
Is that sustaining from sex the whole month?
Just during sunrise and sundown.Just during sunrise and sundown.
OK, that's interesting. OK.
(15:14):
Do you do Ramadan? So is that part of do you do
that for 30 days? What?
When is that? In March or something?
Or April? Around that time, honestly, I've
told them how to so it slightly moves.
So there's the Islamic calendar and then there's like the
calendar that we have right now.The Ramadan slightly moves every
single year. So I think it's actually like
2050 Christmas in Ramadan will like line up on the same on the
(15:35):
same time. Wow, that'll be wild.
That'll be wild. OK, that's interesting.
All right, let me ask you this question on the fasting from
sunrise to sunset. This is funny.
I mean, I've tried every form ofintermittent fasting from a
health perspective, not from a religious perspective.
And so when you fast, do you lose weight?
(15:56):
Like do you lose weight that month or do you feel better?
Do you feel you know people willhave different different results
when it comes to fasting? Does that impact you physically
or health wise at all? Yeah, this is one of the most
beautiful things about Islam is Allah.
God knows what's good for us, right?
(16:17):
So in this modern world, we've got meditation, being
mindfulness. Well, Islam has prayer which
helps you be mindful. We've got now it's like, oh,
it's good to stretch, right? You got to be mobile.
Well, when you do 5 daily prayers, you go down right, you
prostate it, you're stretching the entire time fasting.
Oh, all of a sudden now in the last four years we found out
fasting is the best thing for us.
Well, we have fasting that you have to do as Muslims and not
(16:39):
just obligatory fasting. So there are things called
Sunnah acts in Islam and Sunnah means things that Prophet Mall
and peace be upon him did. And fasting, just like I'm going
to fast today for the sake of God, you get rewards for that,
right? So God reward you for fasting,
and now we know how many health benefits come from that.
So I love fasting. I love doing it during Ramadan.
(17:00):
And one of the best things that comes out of fasting is not the
health benefits. It's not that the mental clarity
can give you, but it's a reminder of how fleeting
everything in this world is, right?
So when you fast all day, what do you think about the whole
day? I can't wait to have food.
I can't wait to drink water. I can't wait to have food.
Then you have food, and 15 minutes later, you're no longer
thinking about having food. You spent a whole day thinking
(17:21):
about it, and then once you got it, you no longer think about
it. And that's how quick our desires
go away, right? Oh, I want this, I want this.
I need more money. Get the money.
Well, now I don't need it anymore.
So it's beautiful. Very interesting.
OK, OK, well, you, you know, listen, I really feel like
you've, you've so embraced this and it's so obvious to me that
it's such a positive effect for you and your life.
(17:43):
Have have other people in your family converted as well?
Or are you the only one? No, I'm the only one.
OK, My parents are great. My my parents are not Muslim,
but humble. They're really good parents.
I got super good relationship with them.
I'm always doing like subtle dawa, right?
So Dawa is to like spread the religion of Islam.
My whole audience is like, you got to preach the message to
(18:05):
your your parents. You got to get them to become
Muslim. But the reality is you're,
you're not going to convince someone to become any religion
by telling them these are all the reasons you should be
Muslim. They have to see it.
They have to see it. So if I want my parents to
become Muslim, what I have to dois just be a better person.
And then when they're intrigued,they'll ask questions.
And then through healthy discourse, that's when you can
guide people towards. What was their reaction when you
(18:26):
when you told them you were becoming a Muslim like or did
they not really have one? Did they just say hey, good for
you, congratulations. I was very scared to tell my
parents that I became, yeah, I don't know why.
I've always had a good relationship with my parents.
We've always been very close, very connected.
Even when I started traveling the world, I kept in contact
with them. My dad gave me a piece of advice
(18:47):
when I graduated from high school.
He said if I regretted one thingin my 20s, that I didn't call my
mom more. So I made a promise right then
and there, like, I'll stay in contact with my parents.
So I think if maybe I hadn't contacted them, and then just
like we didn't talk for eight months and I tell them I'm
Muslim, could have been way worse.
But since we've been in contact,it wasn't too bad.
What happened after About two weeks after I became a Muslim, I
(19:09):
decided to call my dad. And I'm going to tell him I
became a Muslim. Text my dad.
Hey, we need to talk. Ring, ring, ring.
Phone. Hey, Kenyon.
What's up? Dad?
I'm a Muslim. Silence.
Yeah. Silence.
Silence. On the phone.
I thought it was silent for eternity.
Eternity. In reality, it was 5 seconds.
He goes, Yeah, we figured. So I mean, you're living in the
(19:32):
Middle East, your business partner's a Muslim.
It doesn't surprise us. And I, I know for me it's
something I'm very grateful for because I know parents can be
very stuck in their ways. The older we get, the more stuck
in our ways we are. So Hamdullah, I'm very grateful
that parents that we're like super understanding, super
accepting. I mean, we probably talk about
Islam or something related to Muslims.
(19:52):
I'm, I'm visiting my parents right now.
So I've been here for a week. We probably talk about it like
at least once every two days. OK, OK, OK.
Are your parents Catholic or Christian or anything?
Or no Mormon maybe? No.
So my mom's agnostic. My dad, I don't know if he
claimed to be atheist or agnostic somewhere.
Like yeah, he no label. OK.
No label. OK.
(20:12):
Are they still in Idaho? You said?
Yeah, represent, I mean. That is middle America.
That is interesting. That is interesting.
Are your parents political at all?
Are they Republicans? I have to imagine.
No, I, I got so my, my politicalbelief.
I'll tell you. Yeah, I believe your life is
best served by focusing on all of the variables you can
(20:36):
control. I think the average American
gives so much of their mental bandwidth to things they have no
influence over, right? I think people let politics ruin
relationships. I think they let politics
influence their emotion. And I believe regardless of
who's the president, I'm going to do everything in my ability
to make my life and my family's life good.
So I don't care. That doesn't mean that there's
(20:58):
bad things and there's good things obvious.
There is some people I disagree with, some people I agree with.
But I'm not going to spend the mental bandwidth folks young
things I can't control. And that's the relatively same
thing as my parents respect my dad.
My dad's a liberal super. Like he can have open dialogues,
right? Like in terms of liberal versus
conservative, I, I learn more conservative, right?
And so we have like healthy debates and healthy
(21:19):
conversations. And that's what we need in this
world right now. Like the world where, like I
said earlier, we're so concrete,like, no, if, if you have a
slightly different opinion than me, I can't have a dialogue with
you because you disagree with me.
So they've, they've raised me that way.
And that's their political beliefs as well.
Is that also I'll have one more thing.
It's not black and white. You aren't conservative 100% or
(21:39):
liberal 100%. You have this conservative view,
this conservative view, and thatliberal view, right?
Yeah, yeah. It's when we have the title and
we feel the need to be emotionally attached to this
title. So then we slightly change our
beliefs because we've then told ourselves I'm a Republican,
therefore I must believe this because I'm a Republican.
(21:59):
Absolutely. Dude, you are, you are a super
cool guy, man. I'm really, I'm really enjoying
this. You're quite an old soul.
And I mean that as a, as a huge compliment.
You're, you're very, a very mature perspective on this
world. What did I want to ask you?
OK, you know what, I think that's also very cool, your
relationship with your parents, the way they've kind of accepted
(22:20):
it because, you know, that's a that's a challenging thing for
some parents, you know, whether it's religion or sexuality or
whatever. You know you're how old are your
parents? 49 and 51.
Wow. OK, Very young.
Yeah, they're young. OK, All right, that makes a
little more sense. I thought maybe they were
slightly older. OK, that is cool.
What about siblings? Do you have siblings?
(22:42):
I have one older brother, yeah. OK, where's he net out on
things? He he and I are pretty similar.
I think 1 The common trend that you see in my family and the
common like the life loss I holdis being open minded, right?
And that and that we never have 100% of the facts.
We never have 100% of the information.
We're making decisions based offwhat we know, what our life's
(23:04):
been, how we've lived. So he's the exact same way in
that sense. We're all very open minded.
Like one thing in social media. So if I, if I have a big brand
online and then in three years, so let's give an example.
Let's say I make a public post and I go, I support Donald
Trump. I think he's, I think he's a
good, good president. And then in four years I go, I
(23:26):
don't think that Donald Trump was a good president.
Everybody would then go, oh, look at you, you're fake, you
switched up. But in the reality, we're
allowed to change our opinions. Most people change their
opinions, but as soon as we become public about it, people
think that we've switched up, right?
That's growth that's natural to be like, well, no, I've re
evaluated what I believe and this is the parts I still
(23:47):
believe in this, the parts I don't believe.
So it's just slight tangent, butwe need to be willing to.
Change actually, that was a great tangent and and by the
way, a great example that you used with Trump, because I think
that, you know, I think he has changed and and I've talked
about this awful lot on this podcast.
I think he's changed. He's not, you know, there was a
(24:08):
there was a 2016 Trump, then there was a 2020 Trump.
And then to be honest, there wasa 2020 four Trump before his
assassination attempt in Butler,PA.
And then there was a different Trump who was the guy that got
sworn in January 20th, 2025. And we're seeing a very
(24:28):
different Trump. I mean, some people of included
are like, who is this guy? This isn't really the person
that I voted for. So no, that was a that was a
very good example. OK, I want to ask, ask you a
little bit about your social media because honestly, that is,
that's an incredible following. I think on Instagram alone, you
have over 460,000 followers. And you know, I look at a lot of
(24:52):
your content and it was, you know, you've, you've got a lot
of engagement on there too. You know, people are commenting
and there's some haters on theretoo.
And there's definitely some people that are like, oh, you're
a grifter. You're this, you're that, you
know, how is that? Because it's not it's, it's not
all positive, right? We've all heard it right?
(25:15):
People only hate you when they're below you.
Hate's not going to come from people who are doing better.
You know, if someone hates you, it's because they've got
something sad going in their life.
And yes, that's all true. And in theory that sounds
amazing. But then when you read a message
about how you're the worst person ever, you should go kill
yourself as much as the theory of oh, well, they're they're,
they're, you know, they're a hater.
(25:35):
It's still going to get you. So I got a piece of advice from
a mentor of mine, really good piece of advice.
He said the hate will only get to you when you are not concrete
in what you believe and what your purpose is, right?
So let's give an example, the grifter example.
White Muslims tend to get this. Saudi's paying you.
(25:55):
You reverted to Islam to promotethe religion.
I'm still waiting for my paycheck.
Like if the paychecks come in, Iwould like that.
Please, Saudi, I will accept a paycheck.
So they say grifter right now. If part of your intention deep
down was to get social media clout and that's why you started
posting, you'd get offended by that, right?
(26:16):
You'd respond, I'm not a grifter.
What are you? What are you talking about?
Because like part of it's like, oh, maybe there's a tiny bit
that's true. But if you are like, if you're
super concrete and why you're doing something, that's how you
get the hate to not affect you. Like, no, this is how I stand.
So it's not going to affect me. So I have about people saying,
oh, I use, you know, social media to make money or the
(26:37):
content to make money #1 if you make money from that, there's
nothing wrong with it #2 I have a very well documented, right.
So I've had a marketing agency, sales company made my first
$10,000 month ever when I was 19years old before I was a Muslim,
right? And that's, that's a documented
the, the grifter aspect. Like that doesn't bother me when
(26:57):
I see that message because I know I'm like concrete in my
face, right? Like I, I know why I'm doing
this. I'm so it's like what I'd say
for anyone who has haters, you have to know why you're doing
it. And then you also have to
understand it's our human mind to pay attention to the hate,
right? We could read 100 kind messages
and five hate messages and we gothe five, you know, 5 people
dislike me. You just have to train the habit
(27:19):
of paying attention that there'sso much more positive than there
is hate. One more thing on this, you also
have to distinct criticism from hate, OK?
And there can be a hateful criticizing message, and you
have to be willing to accept thecriticism and get rid of the
hate, right? So yeah, I'll say something that
I reflect on a lot and very vocal about this is I think
(27:40):
there was a point in time with my content that I stretched the
disproving other religions too far to where it wasn't a net
positive benefit. It was just got it.
And I get messages from Christians going kill yourself.
That was not a good video. So I can get rid of the kill
yourself because that's just hate.
I don't need to pay attention tothat.
But that's not a good video. I can accept the criticism and I
(28:01):
can analyze it and I go, OK, well, where can I improve,
right? Disregard the hate, accept the
criticism. OK, OK.
Because yeah, I did see some videos where you're like, I'll
disprove Christianity in five slides and all that.
I've done a lot of those. OK, that's funny.
That's funny. I'm not.
Positive on that one. But let me ask you honestly,
(28:22):
like, like from your growth fromthat?
That's funny, from your growth from that.
Now do you realize maybe it's not about disproving other
religions, it's more about just maybe showing people why Islam
and the Muslim religion works for you?
So I, the ex Muslim I had on my podcast today, I was just
(28:43):
talking about that. I was like, do you think that we
are the problem? That's what I said.
I was like, do you think that you disproving Islam and me
disproving Christianity is the problem?
He said no, he doesn't think it's the problem.
So what I will say is I can't bea hypocrite.
I can't say, oh, I've changed and I don't disprove other
religions because that's not true because I've got scheduled
videos that I filmed recently disproving religions, right?
So I can't, I can't, I can't like I can't claim to be the
(29:05):
moral high ground. But what I can claim is this is
something I'm heavily reflectingon.
And I do know my long term vision is I don't want to be
even really talking about the religions.
I want to be talking about my religion.
And I also hold a very firm belief the world is best served
if Christians, Jews and Muslims work together and accept you can
(29:29):
disagree with me, I'll disagree with you.
But at the end of the day, thereare evils at play.
There are such evil things goingon in this world right now.
We are best served working together to fight against the
evils than fighting each other. That's, that's my belief.
Now, obviously with social mediaand things go viral.
I'm human and sometimes I, oh, you know, this is another video
that would go viral, but it's something I very consciously
(29:50):
think about a lot. And I'm want to slowly phase
that part of content out of whatI.
I got you, I got you. Do you know ironically where in
the world prior to 1948 Christians, Muslims and Jews
lived super happily together? Do you happen to know the answer
(30:10):
to that? Is it a place that might
possibly be getting bombed? It is a place that might
possibly interesting. Yeah, Isn't that isn't that
interesting? Prior to 1948, they lived in
harmony. And when you when you talk to
older people that were either alive then or maybe their their
parents were alive and you know,that's exactly what they say.
(30:34):
It's pretty crazy, man. It the weaponization of religion
by politics is unfortunately thegame that's being played.
OK, let me ask you this. Oh, you know, when it comes to
the Muslim religion, obviously there's Shiite and there's
Sunni. Are you one of those two?
(30:54):
So by definition of what the twosectors in Islam are, I am a
Sunni Muslim by the definition of what they are.
But I will not claim to be a Sunni Muslim because it's
actually against Islam in my opinion.
And this is also backed by scholars to claim to be a
sector. Because Allah says that we
should not break into sects, right?
We should not, We should not separate ourselves and during
(31:16):
the prophets time, peace be uponthem, there was never Sunni or
Shia Muslims. So this is something that's been
adopted later and once again it's it's created division
amongst people. So I hold the same belief with
Christianity, Islam that I hold with Sunnis and Shias, right.
So Sunnis and Shias probably hate each other more than
Christians and Muslims hate eachother.
And it's like it's the same thing.
(31:37):
It's like Sunny and Shia are thetwo most similar beliefs that
they spend all the time attacking each other when it's
like, imagine if we spent all that effort attacking each
other, working together to solvethe bigger problems.
And I want to add one more, one more thing on the division being
drive. They're using religion to create
division. Christians, the religion that
you think Islam is is not what it is, right?
(32:01):
Like the media has mass portrayed it.
So there is conflict because as much as you want to believe
whatever you believe, there are a small minority of people who
control the entire world. And if all Muslims and
Christians knew that and agreed on that, they wouldn't be able
to control you. How do you control the masses?
Smoke and mirrors conflict, right?
So it's like the world's problems stop as soon as the two
(32:24):
largest religions in the world, as soon as more than 50% of the
world's population understands we're not enemies, we're on the
same side. Yeah, you are 100% right, my
friend, You are 100% right. So do you know the difference
between Sunni and Shiites? Like what?
What? What are what different things
do they believe? The Shia belief is that
(32:49):
profitable and peace be upon himappointed Ali as like the next
successor of Islam. I'm going to give a real
disclaimer on this part Canyon Mims is a reaver and he is
probably wrong on things that hetalks about.
He is not a scholar, he's not anImam and he's not a student of
knowledge. Disclaimer, this is this is what
I this is what I know. And then the Sunni belief is
(33:11):
that there was no successor, no one that we're supposed to
follow after Prophet Muhammad and we only follow what his
teachings were and not a family,right.
So she has followed like the family of Prophet Muhammad and
Sunnis don't. OK, but both of them really love
Prophet Muhammad, right? Yeah 100% and they worship Allah
(33:32):
with no. OK.
So like that's another thing to me that it's like you guys agree
on 95% thing. It's that 5%.
This is this is where that that other entity that we've talked
about and don't really need to define and and and those groups
of people that really control things, they throw that into the
(33:53):
mix for that division. Yeah, I totally.
I totally think that is crazy. OK, That's the Sunni Shia.
OK, What else? Anything else about this has
been amazing. This has been like, like Islam,
Muslim one O 10. You know what else I wanted to
ask you this concept of radical Muslim jihadists?
Like is that just another? I've got a fantastic thing.
(34:19):
There is no such thing as a Muslim extremist, just like
there is no such thing as a Christian extremist.
Every Muslim who has done an actof terrorism, that's not a
Muslim because they're not doingsomething Islamic, right?
So all of these Muslim terroristorganizations, they don't
represent Islam because what they're doing goes against the
(34:40):
religion. On Judgement Day.
They will be punished for that. Just like the KKK doesn't
represent Christianity as much as has Christian origins because
what they're doing goes against the Christian faith.
So it's really important to understand people do not
represent religion. And if someone does an act of
terrorism, check not what their religion was, why they did it,
(35:03):
does the religion support why they did it, yes or no?
And if no, then they don't represent the rule.
I think that was very well said.And they probably are not even
acting on behalf of the religion.
They're probably acting on behalf of who paid them to do
that terrorist act. Yeah, or, or it was a small
organization of people who did it.
It could. Maybe it was that.
(35:25):
Yeah, exactly, exactly. All right, Canyon, this has been
awesome. You, you're seriously man,
you're, you're a super pleasant.I mean, I'm going to call you a
young guy because you are a young guy, but this has been
super pleased. Anything else?
Anything you want to leave the audience with?
Yeah, I'll, I'll leave with something, but I appreciate
that. I appreciate the the kind words.
(35:46):
No, I mean. It I've really enjoyed our
conversation. Yeah.
What I would leave with the audience is the world wants us
divided. People want us divided.
It doesn't matter if you you hate me, you disagree with me,
you think I'm completely wrong. We need to, at the end of the
day, still respect each other for both being humans.
You can think I'm totally wrong,you could think I'm a bad
(36:06):
person, but at the end of the day we need to make sure we
don't amplify things to where they become too extreme and we
create nations that are 100% divided with no unity.
We need a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, a Hindu, A Buddhist, a
Mormon, and an atheist all to beable to sit down, have lunch,
and not kill each other. That's what we need.
I love it, man, I love it. That's the perfect way to end
(36:28):
it. All right, listen, I would love
to have you back on. You know what we should try to
do and you probably know these guys.
Maybe grab your ex Muslim buddy,maybe grab a Jewish person,
maybe grab an atheist. I, I should do like a round
table with, with young Jen Young, who quite frankly, still
have maintained their sense of humanity in addition to their
(36:50):
religion. Seriously, let's try to do that.
Let's try to grab three or four of your or people.
You know that I'm sure heck witha million people on social media
that, that follow you, you can probably pull together a group
that would be really interesting.
We should do that and bring thatperspective because I will say I
love your generation. I think you guys have really
(37:13):
stepped up and almost like, like, cut through the noise of
what's been taking place. And you guys are, you know, one
of my tag lines on this podcast is call a spade a spade.
And I feel like Gen. Z does that.
They don't have baggage. And they're just like, dude, no,
we're not into that. We don't want that.
We don't want children getting their arms blown off.
(37:34):
And we also don't want, you know, jihadi terrorists who
claim to be, you know, acting onbehalf of Islam.
Those people are not acting on behalf of Islam, they're acting
on behalf of themselves and whoever direct deposits money
into their paycheck. So maybe we'll, we'll, we'll
bring a round table together. That'd be fun.
We should, Yeah. Let's shout it out all.
(37:55):
Right buddy? All right, listen everybody,
Canyon Mims follow him on socialmedia.
I know Instagram is a big platform for you.
I know you've got a YouTube. Are you a big TikTok guy too?
Yeah, I think I'm bigger on TikTok.
Than wow, OK, OK, all right, find them on TikTok.
I'll put all those links in. Seriously, super enjoyable.
Hang on the line. All right, everybody call a
(38:16):
spade a spade. Call your parents, Canyon.
You say hi to your parents sinceyou're visiting them and we'll
talk to you guys soon. All right, hang on.
This episode was brought to you by Zip X Nicotine Toothpicks.
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The following podcast is a deep shallow dive production.
And you're going to love it. OK, let's go.
All right, so I have been wanting to bring more Muslims
(00:20):
onto this podcast to teach people about the Muslim
religion, and I have one today, everybody.
Now, the extra cool thing about this is this guy is a 21 year
old American white kid for lack of a, for lack of, I guess a
more articulate way to say it, but Canyon Mims, who by the way,
(00:43):
has over 1,000,000 followers on his collective social media,
which congratulations on that. That's a that's a big number,
man. That's definitely a big number.
But dude, it is very cool to have you because I've taken in
some of your content. And I mean, let's just start
there. You are a 21 year old white kid
(01:03):
with a million followers on social media.
And two years ago you decided toembrace Islam and become a
Muslim. Give us, give us, give us how
that happened. You know, one of the best piece
of advice that I ever got in my entire life was be willing to
listen to everybody. Be willing to be proven wrong.
(01:25):
Be willing to listen to people who have completely different
opinions than you and have a neutral conversation with them.
In this modern world we have right now, everybody's so
divided. We've got these pull up, we got
liberals and Republicans, we have Muslims, we have
Christians. It's so divided that we've
gotten to a point where we can'teven have healthy dialogue with
the other religion, with the other political beliefs, with
(01:47):
someone from a different country, someone who has a
different ethnicity. So I've established from a young
age the belief that I will always be willing to hear
someone out, right? Because you've had a different
upbringing than me, someone elsehas had a different upbringing
than me. I don't know the life that
you've lived that's LED you to believing what you believe,
right? So it's unfair of me to judge
(02:08):
your beliefs when I don't know why you have them.
So I was very open minded from ayoung age.
I was looking into religions, I talked to Christians, I talked
to Muslims. I ended up living in Pakistan
and when I was living in Pakistan, there were they
treated me like family. They took me and they really
treated me like family and it made me interested in the
(02:28):
religion. And because I'm willing to hear
out everybody, right? Even today, just before getting
on this, I just had a ex Muslim on my podcast and just did a
Muslim Reaver, ex Muslim Christian conversation, right?
And most people aren't willing to have those conversations, but
I think they're super crucial, so I'm always willing to hear
people out. So I listened to the the Muslims
there in Pakistan, What they're saying made total sense.
(02:50):
I resonated with the religion. One thing led to another and I
took my shahada when I was living there.
OK. OK.
So were you. You grew up in the United
States, though, right? Yeah, I grew up in a in a small
town, North Idaho. North Idaho.
OK. And then did you go to Pakistan
with your family, your parents, you guys all moved there or did
you go by yourself? So a mentor of mine gave me a
(03:13):
piece of advice when I was 18, and the piece of advice he gave
me was the best thing that a young man can do is build his
character through experiences, right?
The average man gets to 40 yearsold and there's no sustenance to
his character. There's nothing behind or he
hasn't done anything. So my mentor told me he's like,
if you want to mature faster, you want to become more wise
(03:35):
quicker, go do incredibly uniquethings that build your
character. So I started traveling around
the globe and I had a business partner at the time.
He was Muslim. And he's like, hey, I'd love to
come travel with you And he but he told me he's like, before we
go, I want to go. 17 years old, you're doing this.
I was at this time I was 19. OK, wow, just.
Just full send you life. Life gives you opportunities.
(03:58):
Everybody's given opportunities in life.
The people who succeed are the ones who take action, right?
So I'm always from a young ages like you just have to do it.
So he's like, do you want to go to Pakistan without thinking?
I was like immediately in my head.
That will make a crazy story. I know when I'm 40I will not
regret living in Pakistan when Iwas 19 years old and that that's
how I ended up there. I wasn't with my family.
I was worth my business partner.That's Wildman.
(04:20):
Wow. OK, OK.
And then before that were you, Iforget, did you say you were
atheist, agnostic, Christian, Catholic?
Were you anything religiously prior?
So my mom grew up Mormon, my dadgrew up Christian.
They both left their religions once they became 18.
I was raised in a household, I'dsay with spirituality, right?
(04:43):
We weren't raised agnostic. We weren't raised to a certain
belief, but in a spiritual sense.
You know, you could say my family was kind of a the, the
hippie vibes, right? You know, like Mother Nature and
that type of stuff. I had my grandma who was Mormon,
so I'd go to the Mormon church with her every once in a while
experiencing that, and I had some Christian friends.
But I myself, up until I was about 18, I was an atheist.
(05:05):
Then I became agnostic, looked through a bunch of religions.
Then I became a Muslim. OK, so atheists, meaning you did
not believe there was a God. Then you shift it to agnostic
where you believe there is a higher power or there's
something, but you don't necessarily define it.
OK, now let's move. Let's move to Muslim.
(05:26):
Define that for us. Like what do Muslims believe?
Who's Who is their Jesus Christ?Is it Muhammad or who is their
Yeah, who is their Jesus Christ?Who is their top dog?
It's crazy how much the media has brainwashed the average
American to not know what a Muslim is.
Right? A Muslims worship Prophet
(05:47):
Muhammad, peace be upon him. No, the definition of a Muslim
is someone who submits their will to God.
OK so when you take your shahadawhich means you become a Muslim,
what you say is I testify that there are no other gods but
Allah and Allah means God. There's no other gods but God,
and Muhammad, peace be upon him,is his final messenger.
(06:08):
That's what a Muslim is. So it's a really interesting
thing. A lot of people think
Christianity and Islam are two separate beliefs.
They're not. There are many Christians right
now that by definition are actually Muslims.
The only major difference between Christianity and Islam
is Christians believe Jesus is God, We believe God is God and
(06:28):
there's no partners and you cannot compare anything to God.
OK, OK, all right, this is awesome.
I want to talk about this. So, you know, I have learned all
this. I was telling you right before
we got on, you asked me, you said, hey, are you religious?
And I said, no, I'm actually notin terms of an organized
religion. You know, I was born in Iran,
technically Muslim, but you knowwhat, our parents decided not to
(06:50):
bring us up religiously when we moved to the United States.
So prior to you, gosh, I've had more Christian pastors and
Christian oriented people on thepodcast and I think we've talked
a lot about that. So this is I'm so happy to have
you on And through my research, it's been really interesting.
I've found so many similarities between Christianity and Islam.
(07:14):
You know, both of the, the biggest one being and in my
opinion, the most important is that Jesus is the Messiah to
both religions. That's amazing Mother Mary, he
was born of a virgin birth to both religions.
That's amazing. They both absolutely, you know,
(07:35):
respect and truly value mother Mary.
That's amazing. Think I think Islam and
Christianity both think there will that Jesus is coming back.
There's going to be I forget. What do you guys call that?
Not the resurrection, but the what's?
What's it called when? It's it's just the same belief
for us, the return of Christ. The return of Christ, both
(07:57):
believe there's a return of Christ.
So really the only thing they differ on is kind of what you
said, and I've always, well, notalways, I've kind of thought
that's the divinity, right? They don't believe you guys as
Muslims don't believe in the divinity of Jesus, meaning he's
not the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, whereas the
(08:18):
Christians do. Is that correct?
That's correct, yeah. OK, So like, that's the only
difference. So I'm always like, they are.
So they're like 95% similar. Why does the world try to make
it to where they claim they hateeach other?
Because they don't. That's where the politics comes
(08:38):
into play. And that's where you have to
really figure out like, OK, who is it that is trying to drive
this wedge between the 2.6 billion Christians and the 2.1
billion Muslims? I kind of know the answer.
I think you probably know the answer.
I'll put it like this. I'll put it like this.
(09:01):
There are three major religions,Abrahamic religions.
OK. And by the way, when you say
Abrahamic, define Abrahamic Abraham.
Really. So Abraham's a prophet, peace be
upon him. And an Abrahamic religion is a
religion that's based off his lineage, right?
So all of the, the prophets, Jesus, Moses, Muhammad, Abraham,
(09:22):
Noah, these prophets, peace be upon all of them, they're all in
the Abrahamic faith, right? So then you've got like Buddhism
and Hinduism which have no correlation with those beliefs
but Judaism, Christianity and Islam they halt have a bunch of
similarities. But the interesting thing.
Christianity loves and respects Jesus.
Islam loves and respects Jesus. Buddaism thinks Jesus is burning
(09:47):
in hell and does not believe in Jesus.
Now they make up the very small minority and Christians and
Muslims are 95% the same but they argue with each other.
Why is that? Whom I want you to do that?
Make the assumption as you as you decide.
You want OK, OK, interesting, super interesting, man, super
(10:09):
interesting. OK, so now tell us as like like
you're, you're a practicing Muslim, right?
I do my best. We're none of us are perfect,
but I do my best. OK, OK, So what does that mean?
What does doing your best mean? What?
What is it that you do? So there are certain things in
Islam that are obligatory, right?
You are required to do these things.
And actually, I'll give you quick little back story to this.
(10:31):
One of the things that attractedme to Islam, why I liked it so
much, is when I met a bunch of Christians, I noticed they were
all lukewarm Christians. They didn't really practice
their faith. I met a bunch of Christians who
don't go to church, who don't read the Bible, who don't pray,
who go out and drink on the weekend.
And then I met a bunch of Muslims and I was like, wow,
none of you guys are like interacting with women that
(10:53):
you're not married with. None of you are smoking weed.
None of you are missing your prayers.
So I was, there's a lot of concrete discipline in Islam.
Like, it's to be a very good devout Muslim is much harder
than being a devout Christian. There's more things you have to
do, OK. There's things obligatory acts.
You are required to pray five times a day as a Muslim.
(11:14):
It's structured. It's at certain times.
Yeah. Yeah.
We have Fudger, which is morningprayer.
You wake up, you have to pray early in the morning.
So it's 55 days of prayers. You have to do that.
And you do that. You do that.
You pray five times a day. I do my best to get it.
Obviously I'm not perfect, but it is obligatory or required.
To do it. That's fair and I appreciate
your honesty with that. And then that process of
(11:36):
praying, does that take 5 minutes?
Does that take 15 minutes? How long does that take?
Yeah, about 5. Minutes, 5 minutes.
OK, OK. Five times a day at specific
times during the day, are those times, do they mean something
like is it sunrise, noon? What's the?
What's the methodology? Yeah, it's just like that.
(11:58):
So it's perfectly spaced throughout the day, right?
So you could have 1, you could have one at 5:00 AM, one at
noon, one at 4:00 PM, and, you know, 6:00 PM and.
Ten. OK, OK, got it.
OK. All right.
So the five prayers a day, you do your best to get that in.
OK, great. And then what else?
What are the other, I guess obligatory things?
So we have zakat is another one,right where that's paying
(12:21):
charity. Every Muslim is required to pay
2.5% of their wealth every single year to a charity.
And what I love about this and the difference of tithing,
right? Tithing, when you tie the
Christian faith, you give your money to the church.
OK. And this isn't a direct diss on
Christianity, this is just a fact.
Look at what the mega churches spend their money on.
Your tithing is going to bring aconcert to your church.
(12:42):
In Islam, we don't give zakat toa government, we don't give it
to a mosque and we don't give itto a world leader.
Zakat goes to the charity. That's between you and Allah,
right? So I could say I pay my zakat
and be lying and no one would know and no one would track me
down and make sure I pay it. But on Judgement Day, which is
when we're all our sins will be exposed, That's between me and
(13:03):
Allah to do that. And what I love about this,
we'll get one final thing on it is it allows you to really have
impact with your charity, right?If I tie them, give 10% of my
wealth to a church, I don't really know what happens.
But when I have to pay 2.5%, I get to choose where that goes
and I can donate it to that charity or give it to this
person or help with that cause. And I have full control over
that. That's another point, OK.
Wow, so this 2.5% you're saying is kind of on the honor system
(13:27):
with you individually. And when you say give it to that
charity, you mean any charity ofyour choice, right?
It's not like you're living it to a specific Muslim charity
that's collecting it. It's really the honor system on
you, 100. Percent, yeah.
OK, that's legit. That's legit.
I mean, you brought up these bigevangelical churches and all
(13:49):
that. I mean, that stuff is insane.
It's like you look at guys like Kenneth Copeland and Franklin
Graham and this guy John Hagee out of Texas.
You know, they're running these monster churches and then the
guys living in a 25,000 square foot mansion.
I mean, that's insane. I have, I have such a hard time
(14:10):
understanding how these unfortunately, it's kind of the
baby boomer Christian generation, but how they don't
see how they're just being manipulated and taken advantage
of by these people who have completely leveraged religion
for their own financial gain under the name of Jesus, who
would probably be repulsed with all that.
(14:32):
That's interesting. OK, All right.
So the charity, anything, anything else.
I know with Ramadan and fasting,that's a big thing, right?
So we have obligatory fasts where you have to fast for an
entire month, which is the holy month of Ramadan, or you fast
from sunrise to sundown, no food, no water.
So for a very extended period oftime, there's major sense.
(14:52):
Sunrise to sundown, no food, no water, nothing.
No food, no water sustained fromsex.
So it's purity, right? So that entire time it's all
about worship. You're fasting for worship.
Is that sustaining from sex the whole month?
Just during sunrise and sundown.Just during sunrise and sundown.
OK, that's interesting. OK.
(15:14):
Do you do Ramadan? So is that part of do you do
that for 30 days? What?
When is that? In March or something?
Or April? Around that time, honestly, I've
told them how to so it slightly moves.
So there's the Islamic calendar and then there's like the
calendar that we have right now.The Ramadan slightly moves every
single year. So I think it's actually like
2050 Christmas in Ramadan will like line up on the same on the
(15:35):
same time. Wow, that'll be wild.
That'll be wild. OK, that's interesting.
All right, let me ask you this question on the fasting from
sunrise to sunset. This is funny.
I mean, I've tried every form ofintermittent fasting from a
health perspective, not from a religious perspective.
And so when you fast, do you lose weight?
(15:56):
Like do you lose weight that month or do you feel better?
Do you feel you know people willhave different different results
when it comes to fasting? Does that impact you physically
or health wise at all? Yeah, this is one of the most
beautiful things about Islam is Allah.
God knows what's good for us, right?
(16:17):
So in this modern world, we've got meditation, being
mindfulness. Well, Islam has prayer which
helps you be mindful. We've got now it's like, oh,
it's good to stretch, right? You got to be mobile.
Well, when you do 5 daily prayers, you go down right, you
prostate it, you're stretching the entire time fasting.
Oh, all of a sudden now in the last four years we found out
fasting is the best thing for us.
Well, we have fasting that you have to do as Muslims and not
(16:39):
just obligatory fasting. So there are things called
Sunnah acts in Islam and Sunnah means things that Prophet Mall
and peace be upon him did. And fasting, just like I'm going
to fast today for the sake of God, you get rewards for that,
right? So God reward you for fasting,
and now we know how many health benefits come from that.
So I love fasting. I love doing it during Ramadan.
(17:00):
And one of the best things that comes out of fasting is not the
health benefits. It's not that the mental clarity
can give you, but it's a reminder of how fleeting
everything in this world is, right?
So when you fast all day, what do you think about the whole
day? I can't wait to have food.
I can't wait to drink water. I can't wait to have food.
Then you have food, and 15 minutes later, you're no longer
thinking about having food. You spent a whole day thinking
(17:21):
about it, and then once you got it, you no longer think about
it. And that's how quick our desires
go away, right? Oh, I want this, I want this.
I need more money. Get the money.
Well, now I don't need it anymore.
So it's beautiful. Very interesting.
OK, OK, well, you, you know, listen, I really feel like
you've, you've so embraced this and it's so obvious to me that
it's such a positive effect for you and your life.
(17:43):
Have have other people in your family converted as well?
Or are you the only one? No, I'm the only one.
OK, My parents are great. My my parents are not Muslim,
but humble. They're really good parents.
I got super good relationship with them.
I'm always doing like subtle dawa, right?
So Dawa is to like spread the religion of Islam.
My whole audience is like, you got to preach the message to
(18:05):
your your parents. You got to get them to become
Muslim. But the reality is you're,
you're not going to convince someone to become any religion
by telling them these are all the reasons you should be
Muslim. They have to see it.
They have to see it. So if I want my parents to
become Muslim, what I have to dois just be a better person.
And then when they're intrigued,they'll ask questions.
And then through healthy discourse, that's when you can
guide people towards. What was their reaction when you
(18:26):
when you told them you were becoming a Muslim like or did
they not really have one? Did they just say hey, good for
you, congratulations. I was very scared to tell my
parents that I became, yeah, I don't know why.
I've always had a good relationship with my parents.
We've always been very close, very connected.
Even when I started traveling the world, I kept in contact
with them. My dad gave me a piece of advice
(18:47):
when I graduated from high school.
He said if I regretted one thingin my 20s, that I didn't call my
mom more. So I made a promise right then
and there, like, I'll stay in contact with my parents.
So I think if maybe I hadn't contacted them, and then just
like we didn't talk for eight months and I tell them I'm
Muslim, could have been way worse.
But since we've been in contact,it wasn't too bad.
What happened after About two weeks after I became a Muslim, I
(19:09):
decided to call my dad. And I'm going to tell him I
became a Muslim. Text my dad.
Hey, we need to talk. Ring, ring, ring.
Phone. Hey, Kenyon.
What's up? Dad?
I'm a Muslim. Silence.
Yeah. Silence.
Silence. On the phone.
I thought it was silent for eternity.
Eternity. In reality, it was 5 seconds.
He goes, Yeah, we figured. So I mean, you're living in the
(19:32):
Middle East, your business partner's a Muslim.
It doesn't surprise us. And I, I know for me it's
something I'm very grateful for because I know parents can be
very stuck in their ways. The older we get, the more stuck
in our ways we are. So Hamdullah, I'm very grateful
that parents that we're like super understanding, super
accepting. I mean, we probably talk about
Islam or something related to Muslims.
(19:52):
I'm, I'm visiting my parents right now.
So I've been here for a week. We probably talk about it like
at least once every two days. OK, OK, OK.
Are your parents Catholic or Christian or anything?
Or no Mormon maybe? No.
So my mom's agnostic. My dad, I don't know if he
claimed to be atheist or agnostic somewhere.
Like yeah, he no label. OK.
No label. OK.
(20:12):
Are they still in Idaho? You said?
Yeah, represent, I mean. That is middle America.
That is interesting. That is interesting.
Are your parents political at all?
Are they Republicans? I have to imagine.
No, I, I got so my, my politicalbelief.
I'll tell you. Yeah, I believe your life is
best served by focusing on all of the variables you can
(20:36):
control. I think the average American
gives so much of their mental bandwidth to things they have no
influence over, right? I think people let politics ruin
relationships. I think they let politics
influence their emotion. And I believe regardless of
who's the president, I'm going to do everything in my ability
to make my life and my family's life good.
So I don't care. That doesn't mean that there's
(20:58):
bad things and there's good things obvious.
There is some people I disagree with, some people I agree with.
But I'm not going to spend the mental bandwidth folks young
things I can't control. And that's the relatively same
thing as my parents respect my dad.
My dad's a liberal super. Like he can have open dialogues,
right? Like in terms of liberal versus
conservative, I, I learn more conservative, right?
And so we have like healthy debates and healthy
(21:19):
conversations. And that's what we need in this
world right now. Like the world where, like I
said earlier, we're so concrete,like, no, if, if you have a
slightly different opinion than me, I can't have a dialogue with
you because you disagree with me.
So they've, they've raised me that way.
And that's their political beliefs as well.
Is that also I'll have one more thing.
It's not black and white. You aren't conservative 100% or
(21:39):
liberal 100%. You have this conservative view,
this conservative view, and thatliberal view, right?
Yeah, yeah. It's when we have the title and
we feel the need to be emotionally attached to this
title. So then we slightly change our
beliefs because we've then told ourselves I'm a Republican,
therefore I must believe this because I'm a Republican.
(21:59):
Absolutely. Dude, you are, you are a super
cool guy, man. I'm really, I'm really enjoying
this. You're quite an old soul.
And I mean that as a, as a huge compliment.
You're, you're very, a very mature perspective on this
world. What did I want to ask you?
OK, you know what, I think that's also very cool, your
relationship with your parents, the way they've kind of accepted
(22:20):
it because, you know, that's a that's a challenging thing for
some parents, you know, whether it's religion or sexuality or
whatever. You know you're how old are your
parents? 49 and 51.
Wow. OK, Very young.
Yeah, they're young. OK, All right, that makes a
little more sense. I thought maybe they were
slightly older. OK, that is cool.
What about siblings? Do you have siblings?
(22:42):
I have one older brother, yeah. OK, where's he net out on
things? He he and I are pretty similar.
I think 1 The common trend that you see in my family and the
common like the life loss I holdis being open minded, right?
And that and that we never have 100% of the facts.
We never have 100% of the information.
We're making decisions based offwhat we know, what our life's
(23:04):
been, how we've lived. So he's the exact same way in
that sense. We're all very open minded.
Like one thing in social media. So if I, if I have a big brand
online and then in three years, so let's give an example.
Let's say I make a public post and I go, I support Donald
Trump. I think he's, I think he's a
good, good president. And then in four years I go, I
(23:26):
don't think that Donald Trump was a good president.
Everybody would then go, oh, look at you, you're fake, you
switched up. But in the reality, we're
allowed to change our opinions. Most people change their
opinions, but as soon as we become public about it, people
think that we've switched up, right?
That's growth that's natural to be like, well, no, I've re
evaluated what I believe and this is the parts I still
(23:47):
believe in this, the parts I don't believe.
So it's just slight tangent, butwe need to be willing to.
Change actually, that was a great tangent and and by the
way, a great example that you used with Trump, because I think
that, you know, I think he has changed and and I've talked
about this awful lot on this podcast.
I think he's changed. He's not, you know, there was a
(24:08):
there was a 2016 Trump, then there was a 2020 Trump.
And then to be honest, there wasa 2020 four Trump before his
assassination attempt in Butler,PA.
And then there was a different Trump who was the guy that got
sworn in January 20th, 2025. And we're seeing a very
(24:28):
different Trump. I mean, some people of included
are like, who is this guy? This isn't really the person
that I voted for. So no, that was a that was a
very good example. OK, I want to ask, ask you a
little bit about your social media because honestly, that is,
that's an incredible following. I think on Instagram alone, you
have over 460,000 followers. And you know, I look at a lot of
(24:52):
your content and it was, you know, you've, you've got a lot
of engagement on there too. You know, people are commenting
and there's some haters on theretoo.
And there's definitely some people that are like, oh, you're
a grifter. You're this, you're that, you
know, how is that? Because it's not it's, it's not
all positive, right? We've all heard it right?
(25:15):
People only hate you when they're below you.
Hate's not going to come from people who are doing better.
You know, if someone hates you, it's because they've got
something sad going in their life.
And yes, that's all true. And in theory that sounds
amazing. But then when you read a message
about how you're the worst person ever, you should go kill
yourself as much as the theory of oh, well, they're they're,
they're, you know, they're a hater.
(25:35):
It's still going to get you. So I got a piece of advice from
a mentor of mine, really good piece of advice.
He said the hate will only get to you when you are not concrete
in what you believe and what your purpose is, right?
So let's give an example, the grifter example.
White Muslims tend to get this. Saudi's paying you.
(25:55):
You reverted to Islam to promotethe religion.
I'm still waiting for my paycheck.
Like if the paychecks come in, Iwould like that.
Please, Saudi, I will accept a paycheck.
So they say grifter right now. If part of your intention deep
down was to get social media clout and that's why you started
posting, you'd get offended by that, right?
(26:16):
You'd respond, I'm not a grifter.
What are you? What are you talking about?
Because like part of it's like, oh, maybe there's a tiny bit
that's true. But if you are like, if you're
super concrete and why you're doing something, that's how you
get the hate to not affect you. Like, no, this is how I stand.
So it's not going to affect me. So I have about people saying,
oh, I use, you know, social media to make money or the
(26:37):
content to make money #1 if you make money from that, there's
nothing wrong with it #2 I have a very well documented, right.
So I've had a marketing agency, sales company made my first
$10,000 month ever when I was 19years old before I was a Muslim,
right? And that's, that's a documented
the, the grifter aspect. Like that doesn't bother me when
(26:57):
I see that message because I know I'm like concrete in my
face, right? Like I, I know why I'm doing
this. I'm so it's like what I'd say
for anyone who has haters, you have to know why you're doing
it. And then you also have to
understand it's our human mind to pay attention to the hate,
right? We could read 100 kind messages
and five hate messages and we gothe five, you know, 5 people
dislike me. You just have to train the habit
(27:19):
of paying attention that there'sso much more positive than there
is hate. One more thing on this, you also
have to distinct criticism from hate, OK?
And there can be a hateful criticizing message, and you
have to be willing to accept thecriticism and get rid of the
hate, right? So yeah, I'll say something that
I reflect on a lot and very vocal about this is I think
(27:40):
there was a point in time with my content that I stretched the
disproving other religions too far to where it wasn't a net
positive benefit. It was just got it.
And I get messages from Christians going kill yourself.
That was not a good video. So I can get rid of the kill
yourself because that's just hate.
I don't need to pay attention tothat.
But that's not a good video. I can accept the criticism and I
(28:01):
can analyze it and I go, OK, well, where can I improve,
right? Disregard the hate, accept the
criticism. OK, OK.
Because yeah, I did see some videos where you're like, I'll
disprove Christianity in five slides and all that.
I've done a lot of those. OK, that's funny.
That's funny. I'm not.
Positive on that one. But let me ask you honestly,
(28:22):
like, like from your growth fromthat?
That's funny, from your growth from that.
Now do you realize maybe it's not about disproving other
religions, it's more about just maybe showing people why Islam
and the Muslim religion works for you?
So I, the ex Muslim I had on my podcast today, I was just
(28:43):
talking about that. I was like, do you think that we
are the problem? That's what I said.
I was like, do you think that you disproving Islam and me
disproving Christianity is the problem?
He said no, he doesn't think it's the problem.
So what I will say is I can't bea hypocrite.
I can't say, oh, I've changed and I don't disprove other
religions because that's not true because I've got scheduled
videos that I filmed recently disproving religions, right?
So I can't, I can't, I can't like I can't claim to be the
(29:05):
moral high ground. But what I can claim is this is
something I'm heavily reflectingon.
And I do know my long term vision is I don't want to be
even really talking about the religions.
I want to be talking about my religion.
And I also hold a very firm belief the world is best served
if Christians, Jews and Muslims work together and accept you can
(29:29):
disagree with me, I'll disagree with you.
But at the end of the day, thereare evils at play.
There are such evil things goingon in this world right now.
We are best served working together to fight against the
evils than fighting each other. That's, that's my belief.
Now, obviously with social mediaand things go viral.
I'm human and sometimes I, oh, you know, this is another video
that would go viral, but it's something I very consciously
(29:50):
think about a lot. And I'm want to slowly phase
that part of content out of whatI.
I got you, I got you. Do you know ironically where in
the world prior to 1948 Christians, Muslims and Jews
lived super happily together? Do you happen to know the answer
(30:10):
to that? Is it a place that might
possibly be getting bombed? It is a place that might
possibly interesting. Yeah, Isn't that isn't that
interesting? Prior to 1948, they lived in
harmony. And when you when you talk to
older people that were either alive then or maybe their their
parents were alive and you know,that's exactly what they say.
(30:34):
It's pretty crazy, man. It the weaponization of religion
by politics is unfortunately thegame that's being played.
OK, let me ask you this. Oh, you know, when it comes to
the Muslim religion, obviously there's Shiite and there's
Sunni. Are you one of those two?
(30:54):
So by definition of what the twosectors in Islam are, I am a
Sunni Muslim by the definition of what they are.
But I will not claim to be a Sunni Muslim because it's
actually against Islam in my opinion.
And this is also backed by scholars to claim to be a
sector. Because Allah says that we
should not break into sects, right?
We should not, We should not separate ourselves and during
(31:16):
the prophets time, peace be uponthem, there was never Sunni or
Shia Muslims. So this is something that's been
adopted later and once again it's it's created division
amongst people. So I hold the same belief with
Christianity, Islam that I hold with Sunnis and Shias, right.
So Sunnis and Shias probably hate each other more than
Christians and Muslims hate eachother.
And it's like it's the same thing.
(31:37):
It's like Sunny and Shia are thetwo most similar beliefs that
they spend all the time attacking each other when it's
like, imagine if we spent all that effort attacking each
other, working together to solvethe bigger problems.
And I want to add one more, one more thing on the division being
drive. They're using religion to create
division. Christians, the religion that
you think Islam is is not what it is, right?
(32:01):
Like the media has mass portrayed it.
So there is conflict because as much as you want to believe
whatever you believe, there are a small minority of people who
control the entire world. And if all Muslims and
Christians knew that and agreed on that, they wouldn't be able
to control you. How do you control the masses?
Smoke and mirrors conflict, right?
So it's like the world's problems stop as soon as the two
(32:24):
largest religions in the world, as soon as more than 50% of the
world's population understands we're not enemies, we're on the
same side. Yeah, you are 100% right, my
friend, You are 100% right. So do you know the difference
between Sunni and Shiites? Like what?
What? What are what different things
do they believe? The Shia belief is that
(32:49):
profitable and peace be upon himappointed Ali as like the next
successor of Islam. I'm going to give a real
disclaimer on this part Canyon Mims is a reaver and he is
probably wrong on things that hetalks about.
He is not a scholar, he's not anImam and he's not a student of
knowledge. Disclaimer, this is this is what
I this is what I know. And then the Sunni belief is
(33:11):
that there was no successor, no one that we're supposed to
follow after Prophet Muhammad and we only follow what his
teachings were and not a family,right.
So she has followed like the family of Prophet Muhammad and
Sunnis don't. OK, but both of them really love
Prophet Muhammad, right? Yeah 100% and they worship Allah
(33:32):
with no. OK.
So like that's another thing to me that it's like you guys agree
on 95% thing. It's that 5%.
This is this is where that that other entity that we've talked
about and don't really need to define and and and those groups
of people that really control things, they throw that into the
(33:53):
mix for that division. Yeah, I totally.
I totally think that is crazy. OK, That's the Sunni Shia.
OK, What else? Anything else about this has
been amazing. This has been like, like Islam,
Muslim one O 10. You know what else I wanted to
ask you this concept of radical Muslim jihadists?
Like is that just another? I've got a fantastic thing.
(34:19):
There is no such thing as a Muslim extremist, just like
there is no such thing as a Christian extremist.
Every Muslim who has done an actof terrorism, that's not a
Muslim because they're not doingsomething Islamic, right?
So all of these Muslim terroristorganizations, they don't
represent Islam because what they're doing goes against the
(34:40):
religion. On Judgement Day.
They will be punished for that. Just like the KKK doesn't
represent Christianity as much as has Christian origins because
what they're doing goes against the Christian faith.
So it's really important to understand people do not
represent religion. And if someone does an act of
terrorism, check not what their religion was, why they did it,
(35:03):
does the religion support why they did it, yes or no?
And if no, then they don't represent the rule.
I think that was very well said.And they probably are not even
acting on behalf of the religion.
They're probably acting on behalf of who paid them to do
that terrorist act. Yeah, or, or it was a small
organization of people who did it.
It could. Maybe it was that.
(35:25):
Yeah, exactly, exactly. All right, Canyon, this has been
awesome. You, you're seriously man,
you're, you're a super pleasant.I mean, I'm going to call you a
young guy because you are a young guy, but this has been
super pleased. Anything else?
Anything you want to leave the audience with?
Yeah, I'll, I'll leave with something, but I appreciate
that. I appreciate the the kind words.
(35:46):
No, I mean. It I've really enjoyed our
conversation. Yeah.
What I would leave with the audience is the world wants us
divided. People want us divided.
It doesn't matter if you you hate me, you disagree with me,
you think I'm completely wrong. We need to, at the end of the
day, still respect each other for both being humans.
You can think I'm totally wrong,you could think I'm a bad
(36:06):
person, but at the end of the day we need to make sure we
don't amplify things to where they become too extreme and we
create nations that are 100% divided with no unity.
We need a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, a Hindu, A Buddhist, a
Mormon, and an atheist all to beable to sit down, have lunch,
and not kill each other. That's what we need.
I love it, man, I love it. That's the perfect way to end
(36:28):
it. All right, listen, I would love
to have you back on. You know what we should try to
do and you probably know these guys.
Maybe grab your ex Muslim buddy,maybe grab a Jewish person,
maybe grab an atheist. I, I should do like a round
table with, with young Jen Young, who quite frankly, still
have maintained their sense of humanity in addition to their
(36:50):
religion. Seriously, let's try to do that.
Let's try to grab three or four of your or people.
You know that I'm sure heck witha million people on social media
that, that follow you, you can probably pull together a group
that would be really interesting.
We should do that and bring thatperspective because I will say I
love your generation. I think you guys have really
(37:13):
stepped up and almost like, like, cut through the noise of
what's been taking place. And you guys are, you know, one
of my tag lines on this podcast is call a spade a spade.
And I feel like Gen. Z does that.
They don't have baggage. And they're just like, dude, no,
we're not into that. We don't want that.
We don't want children getting their arms blown off.
(37:34):
And we also don't want, you know, jihadi terrorists who
claim to be, you know, acting onbehalf of Islam.
Those people are not acting on behalf of Islam, they're acting
on behalf of themselves and whoever direct deposits money
into their paycheck. So maybe we'll, we'll, we'll
bring a round table together. That'd be fun.
We should, Yeah. Let's shout it out all.
(37:55):
Right buddy? All right, listen everybody,
Canyon Mims follow him on socialmedia.
I know Instagram is a big platform for you.
I know you've got a YouTube. Are you a big TikTok guy too?
Yeah, I think I'm bigger on TikTok.
Than wow, OK, OK, all right, find them on TikTok.
I'll put all those links in. Seriously, super enjoyable.
Hang on the line. All right, everybody call a
(38:16):
spade a spade. Call your parents, Canyon.
You say hi to your parents sinceyou're visiting them and we'll
talk to you guys soon. All right, hang on.
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