Do shias muslims have many holy places than mecca in saudi arabia?

I think they all are pretty bad with Islam at the moment and need a lot of reform; furthermore, they should get a tighter hold on the fanatics that influence the government rather than the other way around. On your statement though, what you are probably referring to is the famous hadith regarding Salman al-Farsi where Muhammad (saw) told his companions that if faith reached the Pleiades, his people would reach it. In that I believe there was strong prophecy that they had the potential to be very righteous people and/or very strong Muslims.

In modern times, as I said, I don't think any of the countries are that great with Islam right now but Iran so far has been most resistant to Western influence and control in their country albeit at the cost of some extremism and I say some because it could be worse like in Pakistan where minorities or dissenters are horribly persecuted and outcast by a society absolutely dictated by fanatics. Also, just so you know, you might not like Iran very much but Iranians don't like Arabs very well either, Muslim or not. I don't know why Arabs or people who have a liking of Arab culture hate Iranians, maybe its because they consider Iranians arrogant or overrated or something, but Iranians don't like Arabs because they did bring down their empire.

Even if they are Muslim, they still have long standing cultural ties to their country that can't easily be forgotten. Furthermore, as I'll explain later, there were some rulers, not Muslim dynasties in general, that were not so kind to Iranians. BTW, the Safavid dynasty did not force convert people to Islam, they forced Shia beliefs on Sunni Muslims.

Iranians had become majority Muslims from the time of the Abbasids and not through force then either. The Ummayads had left them as they had conquered them and conversion was very gradual but the Abbasids, because they centered their empire more closely to Iran and Iranian culture, took strong movements to preach Islam to the masses and thats what aided the majority move to Islam in Iran. Of course, there were bad things that happened under different rulers against the Iranians as mentioned before but it was sporadic and usually localized to certain bad rulers, not to a whole dynasty of rulers in general.

Umar II for example was a very good ruler to all his subjects and people throughout the Muslim empire had no problem with him but the governor Hajjaj bin Yusuf was very cruel at times, particularly to Iranians, and the ruler of the time let him do as he pleased. I hope this addresses your question.

The holiest cities in Islam are Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem. Hmm, none of these cities seem to be in Iran.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.