145 6 Sonic Atmospheres in Mauritian Devotional Islam Sensing Transoceanic Connections in a Creole Society Patrick Eisenlohr Movement constitutes transoceanic spaces such as the Indian Ocean world. Sonic practices as atmospheres make such multilayered movements and connections palpable. e recitation of naʻt among Mauritian Muslims is an example of how sound and sonic practices can provide somatic evidence for transoceanic links in the Indian Ocean world. As is the case in India and Pakistan, Muslims of Indian background in Mauritius have long engaged in the recitation of Urdu naʻt, devo- tional poetry in honor of the Prophet Muhammad. In this chapter, I examine the interplay between this Indian poetic tradition associated with the Ahl-e Sunnat wa Jamaʻat Islamic reformist tradition with the sonic dynamics of vocal performance. In particular, sonic dynamics of vocal performance are responsible for the power- ful effects of pious transformation that my interlocutors spoke to me about during my field research. To this end, I draw on a neo-phenomenological analytic of atmospheres taking atmospheres to be emotions poured into space that intermin- gle with sentient bodies in order to understand how vocal sound can bring about such transformations. e discursive and sonic dimensions of the naʻt genre are closely interrelated. Nevertheless, by approaching the sonic through the paradigm of atmospheres I treat the sonic as a modality of knowledge and meaning-making that is in principle independent from the discursive aspects of voice. Understand- ing sonic religious practices such as reciting naʻt as atmospheres is also useful because it helps one grasp the role of sensory knowledge in the making and sus- taining of transoceanic connections. Ever since the 1980s, recordings of naʻt, first from India and Pakistan, and since the 1990s also recordings by local naʻt khwan, have circulated in Mauritius.