In scholarship, it has been suggested Bakhtiyaris are descended from the Uxian tribe, who clashed with the Macedonian king Alexander the Great in Khuzestan 330 BC. A second theory suggests that the Bakhtiyaris were originally from Fars, but were settled to the north of Isfahan and Khuzestan after the legendary king Kay Khosrow conquered Media. A third theory suggests that the Bakhtiyaris were descended from the Mardi, a nomadic warrior tribe that lived around the Caspian coast of northern homeland.