Al-Mirghani was the descendant of the respected Mirghani family of Sudan and the great-great grandson of Al SayyidMohammed Uthman al-Mirghani al-Khatim. Ahmad Al-Mirghani held the title of Sayyid, denoting that he was accepted as a descendant of the Islamic prophetMuhammad. He graduated with a First class degree from the University of London and returned to Sudan. His daughter currently resides in London with her four male children, two of whom are also at colleges that are a part of the University of London. He progressed through a professional career until the elections of 1986 when he was elected as the President of Sudan. He played a major role in convincing King Faisal of Saudi Arabia to travel and meet President Nasser of Egypt in Sudan in the famous 1967 Khartoum summit.
Presidency
Al-Mirghani was elected President of Sudan in May 1986 during the country's last democratic elections. He was unseated in a 1989 coup led by Omar al-Bashir.
Later years
Following the coup Al-Mirghani lived in Alexandria, Egypt. He returned to Sudan shortly before his death and lobbied for peace on the War in Darfur. He actively worked on the Darfur file and was chosen as the head of the Darfur Circle in the Democratic Unionist Party. His final trip abroad was to Libya where he held a number of meetings with Darfur rebel groups and the Libyan leadership regarding the solutions to the Western Sudan problem.
Death
Al-Mirghani died in Egypt on November 2, 2008, at the age of 66. Several Sudanese politicians including the president travelled to the Mirghani base in Khartoum to mourn the former president. His body was flown to Khartoum on November 5, and his funeral was held there on the same day. The funeral procession travelled from the airport in the south of the capital Khartoum through the city streets to the north of the capital, where he was buried.
In April 2016, al-Mirghani was named in the Panama Papers as owner of Orange Star Corporation, which was created in 1995 and based in the British Virgin Islands. In 2008 at the time of al-Mirghani's death through the company he held 2.72 million US dollars in assets.
