Ibn Ajiba's The Book of Ascension to the Essential Truths of Sufism
Hope (raja) is the tranquility of a heart awaiting the object of its love, along with effort made to accomplish the means which lead to that object. Hope without effort is but vanity and self-deception.
For the generality of the faithful, hope is to reach the best of destinations as reward; for the elect, it is to attain God’s pleasure (ridwan) and draw near; and for the elect of the elect, it is to attain stability in the consciousness of God and progress ever higher in knowledge of the mysteries of the worshiped Sovereign.
Fear and hope in the heart are like the two wings of a bird: it cannot fly except with both. However, it may be that hope is more prevalent with the gnostics (al-arifun) and fear with the virtuous (al-salihun).
The root r-j-w expresses the idea of hoping for something or expecting something. In various forms it occurs in the Quran about 30 times.