A small number of House Democrats will attend prayer services at mosques on Friday in what is intended to be a show of solidarity with American Muslims.
But the act may more likely be seen as a mark of contrast to Republican lawmakers, who have fixated on recent mass shootings by Muslims in Paris and in San Bernardino, Calif., as evidence that the United States needs to stop the influx of refugees and bulk up offenses in the Middle East.
“After Paris and after the House resolution a few weeks ago, we just thought it was really important to continue to reiterate to the many, many peace-loving Muslim Americans that they were still a welcome part of our community,” said Representative Don Beyer, Democrat of Virginia, who helped organize the visits, including one to Dar al-Hijrah, a mosque outside Washington.
Mr. Beyer, along with Representative Keith Ellison, Democrat of Minnesota, and Representative Joseph Crowley, Democrat of New York, sent a letter to colleagues this week urging them to join in showing “our ability to rise up collectively against” Islamophobia.
Few took them up on the offer.
As of Thursday, only Eleanor Holmes Norton, the nonvoting congressional delegate representing the District of Columbia, Representative Betty McCollum, Democrat of Minnesota, and a handful of Virginia Democratic lawmakers had said they would join Mr. Beyer. (Mr. Ellison and Mr. Crowley were planning to attend prayer services in their districts.)
The visits, which were planned on Monday, will most likely take on additional meaning after Wednesday’s shooting in San Bernardino, where a married Muslim couple killed 14 people at a social services center.
“Yesterday does make it a little harder,” Mr. Beyer said in an interview on Thursday. “It’s just another unfortunate data point. So, I think it’s more necessary than ever to go talk to the people who have nothing to do with that.”
Dar al-Hijrah, in Falls Church, Va., has been a frequent locus of American Muslim tension in recent decades. And two weeks ago, a 27-year-old man was charged with leaving a fake explosive at the mosque.