Invisible East Digital Corpus

Typology of texts in IEDC

Type	Sub-type	Definition	Included	Excluded	Comments
Legal	Worship acts Sale Rent-hire Partnership Marriage Divorce Loan Amicable Settlement Preemption Power of attorney Slavery and Manumission Inheritance Donation Transfer of money [or good] Guarantee of liability Loan, Debt Penal rules Personal Status Testimony Litigation Jihad	Document produced by or for a qāḍī court or legal or paralegal professional (eg. faqīh), often having probative or dispositive value	Stand-alone deeds: testimonies, marriage contracts, bills of divorce, bills of sale, acknowledgments of debt, partnership agreements Copies of deeds and summaries of cases in court registers Legal queries and responsa Communal decrees when formulated like legal documents, but also tag as #communal_decree	Tax receipts and orders of payment to or from the fisc (classed under administrative document) Other administrative documents with legal force: this category is for court and private deeds only Orders of payment (not involving the fisc) Legal formularies Private orders of payment Lists of payment (not involving the fisc) Commercial accounts Price lists	Legal documents can contain witnesses’ signatures but don’t necessarily.
Letter	Complaint Condolence Support Longing (ishtiyāq) Congratulation Convalescence Gratitude Displeasure Invitation Consultation Apology Loan request Confidential note (mulaṭṭafa) Commercial Confirmation of receipt of letter	Communication from one or more parties to one or more parties, named or unnamed. Usually contains full sentences with verbs	Letters Notes Epistles Petitions to private patrons or communal officials Epistolary formularies with practical value	Administrative (i.e. state) decrees, rescripts, petitions and reports (classed under administrative document)
List or table	Grocery Payment Charity Commercial accounts Prices Inventory	Items arranged in sequence, whether vertically or horizontally. A list has one column, a table has two or more columns; rarely contains verbs.	Grocery lists Lists of payment Charity lists Commercial accounts Price lists	state (fiscal) accounts
Literary	Poetry Liturgy/prayer Political history Biographical Lexicography Science Medicine Scriptures Exegesis Mystical	Long-form narrative, analytical or canonical texts, as well as poems; often artful and/or formal; usually intended for posterity.	Poems Prayerbooks Tales Anthologies Chronicles Biographical dictionaries Scientific and medical works Copies of transmitted religious works (Bible, Qurʾān, Talmud, Midrash) Legal codes Occasional literary pieces such as sermons, liturgical poems and panegyrics intended for recitation in specific settings, even if they haven’t been anthologized — tag accordingly Prayers for curative purposes are given the prayer sub-type	1-2 lines of a literary work jotted down in another context, e.g., trials of the pen when scribbled on other texts that we can categorize some other way. But if a fragment contains only literary trials of the pen, it is literary.
Paraliterary	Curative prescription Calendar Magic Recipe Colophon Draft	Texts that are neither documentary nor literary, and/or are highly specialized and/or highly formalised. The texts are less narrative or literary and less of the quotidian records that documents are.	Medical prescriptions Ephemerides, calendars and other astronomical aids Amulets and other practical magical texts Recipe Colophon Drafts of literary texts	Cheques (these are legal); tax receipts (these are administrative) Drafts of legal or administrative documents
Administrative	Decree Petition to state officials Report Receipt Fiscal account/register Order of payment (or other) List Internal correspondence	Documents written by or to state officials in their capacity as officials, including private contractors (such as tax farmers)	Decrees and rescripts Petitions to state officials (even drafts or private copies) Official reports Tax receipts Fiscal accounts Lists of payment Charity lists and poor rolls [Internal correspondence]	letters or notes written by state officials acting as private persons (classed under letters)
Unknown		Unknown is for quitters!	Illegible texts Doodles Pen trials