Orientalism functions as a self-enclosed Western text rather than knowledge of an actual Orient.

Evidence

Note here the cumulative effect of the unidirectionality I have just discussed: the Orient is re-created in the Orientalist text, which is why it “has less to do with the Orient than it does with ‘our’ world.” Orientalism emerges as our “text” that “our” world “reads” about “our Orient,” the text being all that “our” world knows, but it is a text that is “reinforced by the colonial encounter.” The text then not only defines “our” knowledge but also keeps this knowledge internal to it. — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 108