Sheikh Jarrah (Arabic: الشيخ جراح, Hebrew: שייח׳ ג׳ראח) is a predominantly Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem, two kilometres (1+1⁄4 miles) north of the Old City, on the road to Mount Scopus. It received its name from the 13th-century tomb of Hussam al-Din al-Jarrahi, a physician of Saladin, located within its vicinity. The modern neighborhood was founded in 1865 and gradually became a residential center of Jerusalem's Muslim elite, particularly the al-Husayni family. After the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, it became under Jordanian-held East Jerusalem, bordering the no-man's land area with Israeli-held West Jerusalem until Israel occupied the neighborhood in the 1967 Six-Day War. Most of its present Palestinian population is said to come from refugees expelled from Jerusalem's Talbiya neighbourhood in 1948.

Certain properties are subject to legal proceedings based on the application of two Israeli laws, the Absentee Property Law and the Legal and Administrative Matters Law of 1970.Israeli nationalist organizations have sought to acquire property in the area since 1967. For five decades, several Israeli settlements have been built in and adjacent to Sheikh Jarrah.

The Arab neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah was originally a village named after Hussam al-Din al-Jarrahi, who lived in the 12th century and was an emir and the personal physician to Saladin, the military leader whose army took Jerusalem from the Crusaders. Sheikh Hussam received the title jarrah(جراح<), meaning "healer" or "surgeon" in Arabic.

Sheikh Jarrah established a zāwiya (literally "angle, corner", also meaning a small mosque or school), known as the Zawiya Jarrahiyya. Sheikh Jarrah was buried on the grounds of the school. A tomb was built in 1201, which became a destination for worshippers and visitors. A two-story stone building incorporating a flour mill, Qasr el-Amawi, was built opposite the tomb in the 17th century.

The neighborhood Sheikh Jarrah was established on the slopes of Mount Scopus, taking its name from the tomb of Sheikh Jarrah. The initial residential construction works were commenced in 1865 by an important city notable, Rabah al-Husayni, who constructed a large manor among the olive groves near the Sheikh Jarrah tomb and outside the Damascus Gate. This action motivated many other Muslim notables from the Old City to migrate to the area and construct new homes, including the Nashashibis, built homes in the upscale northern and eastern parts of the neighborhood. Sheikh Jarrah began to grow as a Muslim nucleus between the 1870s and 1890s. Prayer at the Sheikh Jarrah tomb is said to bring good luck, particularly for those who raise chickens and eggs. It became the first Arab Muslim-majority neighborhood in Jerusalem to be built outside the walls of the Old City. In the western part, houses were smaller and more scattered.

Because it was founded by Rabah al-Husayni whose home formed the nucleus of Sheikh Jarrah, the neighborhood was locally referred to as the "Husayni Neighborhood." It gradually became a center for the notable al-Husayni family whose members, including Jerusalem mayor Salim al-Husayni and the former treasurer of the Education Ministry in the Ottoman capital of Istanbul, Shukri al-Husayni, built their residences in the neighborhood. Other notables who moved into the neighborhood included Faydi Efendi Shaykh Yunus, the Custodian of the Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, and Rashid Efendi al-Nashashibi, a member of the District Administrative Council. A mosque housing the Sheikh Jarrah tomb was built in 1895 on Nablus Road, north of the Old City and the American Colony. In 1898 the Anglican St. George's School was built in Sheikh Jarrah and soon became the secondary educational institution where Jerusalem's elite sent their sons.

At the Ottoman census of 1905, the Sheikh Jarrah nahiya (sub-district) consisted of the Muslim quarters of Sheikh Jarrah, Hayy el-Husayni, Wadi el-Joz and Bab ez-Zahira, and the Jewish quarters of Shim'on Hatsadik and Nahalat Shim'on. Its population was counted as 167 Muslim families (est. 1,250 people), 97 Jewish families, and 6 Christian families. It contained the largest concentration of Muslims outside the Old City. Most of the Muslim population was born in Jerusalem, with 185 residents alone being members of the al-Husayni family. A smaller number hailed from other parts of Palestine, namely Hebron, Jabal Nablus and Ramla, and from other parts of the Ottoman Empire, including Damascus, Beirut, Libya and Anatolia. The Jewish population included Ashkenazim, Sephardim and Maghrebim while the Christians were mostly Protestants. In 1918 the Sheikh Jarrah quarter of the Sheikh Jarrah nahiya contained about 30 houses.

During the 1948 civil war, on 14 April, 78 Jews, mostly doctors and nurses, were killed on their way to Hadassah Hospital when their convoy was attacked by Arab forces as it passed through Sheikh Jarrah, the main road to Mount Scopus. In the wake of these hostilities, Mount Scopus was cut off from what would become West Jerusalem. On 24 April the Haganah launched an attack on Sheikh Jarrah as part of Operation Yevusi but they were forced to retreat after action by the British Army.