Stairway to Heaven is the story of an ancient and sublime work of sacred art, whose loss not only shook the art world, but triggered the shocking realisation that traditional Islamic knowledge and skills have all but vanished. In 1969, the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem was attacked by a Christian fanatic. In the blaze that followed, one of the world's most precious works of art, the minbar of Saladin, originally installed in 1187, was destroyed. The minbar lay in ashes, but fortunately some black and white photos survived.