Religion and development have been uncomfortable bedfellows for decades yet development strategies designed by Western donors are prescribed for the very people who are often religiously motivated in their daily lives. Attempts have been made in the recent past to restore some of that imbalance by incorporating cultural issues and religious values into the international development policy network, but hostilities remain. This article argues that development practices continue to embrace a neoliberal framework which limits other ideological viewpoints. Setting an Islamic context where greater emphasis is laid on values, it asserts that in a country such as Bangladesh, Islamic solutions to development also have a utilitarian function in welfare terms. It introduces an Islamic model to development based around the disbursement of zakah called the parshi and looks at how it contrasts with the dominant NGO model in the country.
