ISLAMABAD – In a recent *interviewlink>*,Usman Khawaja’s wife-to-be Rachel McLellan has revealed that she hasconverted to Islam out of her free will.

She stressed that she neither faced pressure from the Australian cricketernor from his family while making the big decision of converting to Islam.

She said, “(I felt) no pressure from him, not any pressure from his family.”

“I just knew it was so important to him,” she added, assuring that thedecision was her own.

McLellan, 22, is presently a marketing student. Born into a Catholicfamily, she was proposed by Khawaja while celebrating a New York holidayduring 2016.

She told that Khawaja was the first Muslim she had ever met, recalling thatshe was ‘very ignorant’ in past to believe whatever she heard on the newsabout the Muslims.

The same interview also featured Khawaja – the Islamabad-born batsman andthe first Muslim to play cricket from Australia. He said that he lovedcricket but religion was the most important thing in his life. He answered,“I love my cricket … but faith any day of the week. Religion is the mostimportant thing in my life.”

He admitted that he considered the Islamic teachings in every walk of life.“Everything I do, it (religion) is always in the back of my mind. I’malways thinking, ‘Is this the right thing to do? Is this how I should bedoing things?’”

Khawaja told that he did not want a public outrage over his marriage with aCatholic girl. He had advised her that he would “prefer her to convert (toIslam) but she has to do it on her own”.