Does the growing plant have a soul?

Question:
To the distinguished and noble Shaykh, Abdul Aziz ibn Abdullah ibn Baz, greetings: The plant grows, flourishes, matures, and ages; it eats and drinks and dies, passing through stages similar to those of a human being. Does this plant have a soul? Please support your answer with evidence, knowing that the biologists, linguists, and religious scholars in our high school have conflicting opinions. I ask for clarification. Peace be upon you.

Answer:
Life is of two kinds, as the scholars have explained, and the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of His Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) indicate this. Life is of two kinds:
Life with a soul, which hears and sees, and goes out and comes in. This is the case with animals. The soul of the children of Adam and of animals is created by Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He) as an independent entity; it enters the animal and exits it upon death. Allah knows best its essence. He the Exalted said: [Al-Isra: 85], meaning: a soul that stands on its own, which hears and sees, and goes out and comes in at the time of sleep and at the time of death; it has its own status.
The second kind of life is the life of growth, increase, and movement. This is for plants, which Allah has made to mature, grow, age, and perish. This is developmental life, the life of growth, the life of ascent, the life of movement, caused by water or by other factors. This is a specific type of life; it is not the life of the soul that enters and exits, and hears. It is an inanimate life, lacking the characteristics of the soul, such as hearing, sight, exiting, departing, and arriving. No, this is the life of growth that Allah placed in the plant; by it, it grows, by it, it moves, by it, it increases, and by it, it reaches its limit. After this, other things come upon it that cause it to wither and dissolve.